I am a bit new to blogging on my own, but I guess it time to try something new.

Upon the suggestion of Prof. Austrom, I am not going to use my own name. For those of you that know me, you know who I am and where I am from, so I hope the name Detroit ExPat makes sense to you.

I have really enjoyed reading about and contemplating the nature of leadership in the business world over the first two weeks of J506.  It was not something I had thought about directly in quite some time.  Sure I have thought a bit about my managers, co-workers and organization over the last few years (mostly about how dysfunctional it can be at times), but not about leadership as a set of skills. 

I have to admit that the concept of Level Five leadership is very appealing to me, with its mix of deep personal drive and high standards mixed with personal humility and unmittigated support of people that make the organization work.  I told my manager that we were learning about “Level Five” in class and was rather unsurprised that he was a big fan of Good to Great (I asked to borrow the book from him - taking the lead from the anecdote in our reading assignment).

I believe that my manager took the book to heart and does his best to model his personal style in the Level Five mold.  He is one of the good guys around the office, that’s for sure. He admitted that our place of work does not do the best job of recognising, rewarding and promoting managers with Level Five personalities and behaviors.  The suits and salesmen tend to oversell their contributions, capicities and skills and rise to the top in our organization, but he gave me hope when he said, “… but don’t forget, nice guys still can finish first!”