Running head: Levels of leadership 1

Levels of Leadership for a Christian Organization: An Exploration and

Comparison

Ezekiel A. Odeyemi
Though leaders are found at different hierarchical levels in organizations (Chun,
Yammarino, Dionne, Sosik, & Moon, 2009), leadership is more than the existence of individuals
at whatever levels in a workplace. Various writers have examined levels of leadership based on
the nature of influence the leaders manifest, the depth of relationships between the leaders and
the followers, and the organizational outcomes. This study will compare three approaches to
designating leadership levels by analyzing the components of each approach and synthesizing the
findings in order to arrive at a single framework.
John Maxwell is a popular writer and speaker on leadership. Many of his books have
made the bestsellers list. The principles are more on popular literature level but most of these
principles have also, one way or the other, found their ways to scholarly literature since
leadership is a universal phenomenon. His works cannot be ignored by leadership experts
because of the nature of influence he has garnered in the past 30 years as a leadership trainer to
many corporations - big, small, profit, and nonprofit. Maxwell (2011) opined that leadership
goes beyond a position because it is a process, and since it deals with people within a group
context, it is dynamic. This understanding is necessary because leadership is about creating
change and ensuring that the organization experiences growth.
In order for this to happen, Maxwell (2011) conceived leadership, not so much as a career
path, but as a form of development. The developing leader is able to move from one level to the
next and also take the followers along the path of development, and in the end, ensure that
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followers become leaders. The five levels of leadership, according to Maxwell's (2011)
conceptualization are: position, permission, production, people development, and pinnacle. The
position leader approaches leadership as a right with perquisites of office as endowments. Such
people are power-conscious and any infringement on their power is met with use of force and
people follow because the next meal may depend on their submission. According to Maxwell
(2011), "positional leaders usually have difficulty working with volunteers, younger people, and
the highly educated." Positional leaders do not like to have people who are self-confident around
them. They would prefer those who will cling to them for direction all the time.
Permission leaders fair better because they work to develop relationship with the
followers, and relationships create a more positive environment where achievement of goals
could easily happen. The positive influence of a permission leader could also become an
albatross if the leader fails to move to the next level - production. The level 3 leader, according
to Maxwell (2011), leverages relationships to produce results. At this level, the organization
begins to experience higher outputs, more positive environment and improvement in morale,
higher profitability and lower turnover. But the level 4 leaders do more than producing results
because such leaders are developers of other leaders. They focus on people development or
reproduction. The level 4 leader invests more in people throughout the establishment but more
on the top leadership materials in order to have a cache of future leaders. This is one of the
secrets of General Electric, and organization that has perfected how to raise leaders for
generations. Maxwell (2011) believed that only natural leaders make it to the pinnacle, level 5.
Leaders at this point concentrate on bringing others to level 4 in order that such level 4 leaders
might lead instead of follow. Level 5 leaders are concerned more about legacy than just
relationships and results. Their ability to raise the bar is exceptional because they become the
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standard by which other leaders and organizations measure progress. Reputation is the currency
of their influence and having nurtured this currency over the years, it has to be guarded in in
order to finish well.
Jim Collins (2001) posited that the levels begin with the highly capable individual,
contributing team member, competent manager, effective leader, and level 5 executive. The
highly capable is highly talented and brought some relevant knowledge and skills to the job
coupled with good work habits. The contributing team member works effectively with others to
produce results within the group setting while the competent manager does a bit more by
organizing resources - human and others - to effectively and efficiently achieve predetermined
goals. Though the fourth level belongs to the effective leader, the distance between the last two
levels cannot easily be bridged through years of service. The effective leader possesses an
unusual level of commitment that galvanizes the organization's human resources to pursue clear
and compelling vision while stimulating them to higher performance standard. Hence the
effective leader must be a powerful vision caster and an effective communicator. Level 5
executive is the pinnacle of the leadership attainment and it is reserved for those who could build
enduring greatness through humility and personal will. Such leaders possess courage, sacrifice
and commitment, and they are not overwhelmed by the challenges of the times. Collins' (2008)
examples of enduring organizations include Johnson and Johnson, an organization that has been
in existence since 1886, Procter and Gamble since 1837, General Electric since 1892, and Nucor
Corp that was resuscitated from near-bankruptcy in 1965.
Fry and Kriger (2009) conceived of leadership as a continuum that exists on five levels
from doing to having to being. The theory focuses on the "essential reality of leadership as a
state of being appropriate to context" (p. 1668). The multi-level ontological approach examines
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how leadership has been conceived over the years and the progression in leadership thought. Fry
and Kriger (2009) also employed the inverted approach by putting the highest level as level 1
and the lowest as level 5. The level 5 is the level of the sensible/physical world where leadership
is based on traits and behaviors while level 4 is based on images and imagination. At this level,
the leader focuses on vision and values. The level 3 leadership is based on the soul because the
leader becomes more aware of the individual psyche of self and followers, and becomes less
egocentric. Level 2 is the spiritual leadership level where leading is done through love, service
and presence. The following underlying values manifest in spiritual leadership: trust,
forgiveness/acceptance, humility, kindness, excellence, integrity, courage, and so on. The level 1
leader operates at the non-dual level, that is, the leader experiences pure emptiness in order to
enjoy pure fullness. At this level, the goal of the leader is to know the Lord (the Absolute) in
order to discover and fulfill purpose.
Levels of Leadership: A Synthesis
This section attempts a synthesis of the three approaches and unified the ideas where
necessary. In order to ensure proper comparison, Fry and Krigers (2009) numbering system was
reversed. Hence, level 5 will become level 1 and vice versa while all other things remain the
same.

Level/Characteristics Maxwell (2011) Collins (2001) Fry & Kriger (2009)
(Nomenclature
reversed)
1 Position (Leadership
as a right)
Highly capable
individual
Traits and behaviors
(Sensible/Physical
world)
2 Permission Contributing team Vision and values
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(Leadership as
relationship)
member (Images and
imagination)
3 Production
(Leadership as results)
Competent manager Conscious leadership
(The soul)
4 People development
(Leadership as
reproduction)
Effective leader Spiritual leadership
(The spirit)
5 Pinnacle (Leadership
as reputation)
Level 5 executive Non-dual leadership
(Pure emptiness and
pure fulness)

The various approaches reveal the difficulties the authors had to go through in order to
distinguish specific boundaries between one level and the other. To a large extent, these
designations are, more or less, hypothetical. In reality an individual may be a follower, a leader-
in-the-making or a leader. The truth is that there are leadership materials within every
organization and there are non-leadership materials at leadership level as well. For example,
while there are followers who could progress from levels 1-4 (Maxwell, 2011; Collins, 2001),
majority may not exceed level 3. In other word, such people may produce results but they may
not be leadership materials and their resultant influence within the organization may be negative.
The implication is that, if they ever advance to level 4, the people they mentor will wreak more
havoc on the organization than good. Hence, world-class organizations are more concerned about
how many of the followers are able to progress to the leadership class. While followers may
produce results, the leadership class is needed to steer the organization out of murky waters. In
addition, good leaders are needed to produce future good leaders through mentoring.
The situation is more alarming with Fry and Krigers (2009) approach. Most people in the
leadership pipeline will not advance beyond level 2 because they were never trained to lead from
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the soul. As visionaries, they may challenge followers to higher performance but the Bible says
such people may also be operating with a dead conscience or conscience seared with hot iron (1
Tim. 4:2; Heb. 9:14). When an organization has more of the leaders in category 2 who cannot
advance to the next category the result can only be left to imagination. They are insensitive,
uncaring, selfish, unreliable, untrustworthy, and their focus is on immediate gains. Their
perception is limited to what the eyes can see while the soul is famished of nourishment available
from God. If people do not advance beyond level 2, how can they influence the followers at the
spiritual leadership level? Impossible! But Paul revealed that ministry leaders must even go
beyond spiritual leadership level and attain the non-dual level where the individual is lost in
Christ.
Apostle Paul reached this level when he said "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I
live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith
of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). Until a leader
experiences death of self, living for God in the midst of contrasting circumstances becomes a
herculean task, and an unending struggle. Such self-centered leader produces less beneficial acts
for the organization and the individuals involved. The result is that there are strained
relationships all over the place, followers are demotivated, frustration level is high, productivity
is low, and with time, bottom-line could drop beyond comfortable level.

Conclusion
Collins (2006) had an encounter with an army captain who, in his MBA class, was
confronted by a classmate about the relevance of leadership in the Army where people were
already trained to obey orders. The captain responded thus "In business, if you make bad
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decisions, people lose money, and perhaps jobs. In the military, if you make bad decisions,
nations can fall and people can die." In issues concerning spiritual leadership and ministry, lives
of individuals are involved, and many lives may be lost when leaders make bad decisions. Such
losses are not just at the physical level, but most importantly, at the spiritual level. Decisions
made by church leaders at various ecclesiastical levels may send people to eternity without hope
while others may lose the fire of commitment permanently. The need for level 5 leaders or
leaders with kingdom-interest has never become more critical and the achievement of this
objective must be at the heart of all organizational pursuits.

References
Chun, J. U., Yammarino, F. J., Dionne, S. D., Sosik, J. J., & Moon, H. K. (2009). Leadership
across hierarchical levels: Multiple levels of management and multiple levels of
analysis. The Leadership Quarterly, 20(5), 689-707.
Collins, J. C. (2001). Good to great: Why some companies make the leap... and others don't.
New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Collins, J. (2008). The secret of enduring greatness. Fortune 19.
Fry, L., & Kriger, M. (2009). Towards a being-centered leadership: Multiple levels of being as a
context for effective leadership. Human Relations, 62(11), 1667-1696,
doi:10.1177/0018726709346380.
Maxwell, J. C. (2011). The 5 levels of leadership: Proven steps to maximize your potentials. New
York: Hachette Book Group.

The author
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Ezekiel A. Odeyemi is Director, Centre for Pastoral Leadership, The Redeemed Christian
Church of God, Redemption Camp, Nigeria.