Leadership: Nehemiah must be an MBA Graduate
Tommy Tjiptadjaja

“We have produced ideas and leaders that shape the world of business.” - The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Leadership is an issue that cannot be taken lightly; the impacts of good leadership as well as bad ones go a long way. Top MBA schools around the world claim their place as the leaders 'development' factories. Many leadership models are taught, learnt, analyzed, debated, rejected, propagated, and so on in their classrooms and lab settings. One distinct model is the so-called Level 5 Leadership by Jim Collins first released in 2001. Level 5 refers to the highest level in the hierarchy of executive capabilities that were identified through an extensive research. “It is important to note that Level 5 is an empirical finding, not an ideological one”, wrote Jim in Good to Great. Leaders at the other four levels can produce high degree of success but not enough to elevate companies from mediocrity to sustained excellence. Kimberly-Clark under the stewardship of a Level 5, Darwin Smith, generated 4.1 times cumulative stock returns than the general market, outperforming companies such as Coca Cola, HP, 3M, and GE.

While Jim's team empirically discovered the existence of Level 5 Leadership principles in 2001, this essay would like to bring up a Level 5 leadership example from way past, around 450 BC. Even more than that, we will try to pick up where Jim and his team left off in Good to Great, in which they refrained from explaining (or speculating) how Level 5 came to be.

Jim's finding shows that Level 5 = Personal Humility + Professional Will. Level 5 is a “study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless”. This caused quite a discussion back then, considering the prevailing notion of leadership was a big personality, larger-than-life person who populates the magazine covers. Even the revered Jack Welch scored as a Level 4. Jim drew the table below as a summary of Level 5 Leadership:

The Example from 444 BC Middle East

The historical book of Nehemiah in the Bible wrote about the Persian rule over the Israelites and the story of one leader, Nehemiah, who successfully led the Israelite exiles to return to and rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. It was such an enormous task that nobody thought possible due to many critical factors, among others:

• Jerusalem's physical walls, which back then was an important factor symbolically (it symbolizes a nation's dignity and power) and physically (for protection from invading armies) were totally broken and burned down.
• The human resource quality required to rebuild the wall was doubtful; they were lost slaves without a vision or power. They were just a joke between the surrounding nations.
• The political climate is against rebuilding of the walls: Israel's old enemies as well as the Persians (who are their rulers) are against it.

Yet despite all those, the book recorded how Nehemiah prayed to God asking for His guidance and strength, solidified his vision, analyzed the environment, built a team, created a plan and finally executed successfully.

What is interesting from the story was the fact that the Old Testament Bible, unwittingly through the story of Nehemiah and the successful rebuilding of the wall, illustrates quite strongly an example of a Level 5 Leadership, a concept discovered almost 2500 years later.

Nehemiah as an MBA Graduate

Should you read the book of Nehemiah thoroughly, you will see how Nehemiah would qualify as a top-school MBA graduate. He negotiated tactfully with the Persian King; he planned, analyzed, set objectives, budgeted, strategize, built and led his team, executed and managed the project, built contingency plans, reviewed, and even closed the project well. He delivered a great result that had never been done before: rebuilt the broken Jerusalem wall in 52 days (and was probably under budget too, who knows). He easily fulfilled Level 4 leadership. He even has some of the characteristics from the table above. Read on.

Nehemiah as a Level 5 Leader

As if the book wants to teach us further, it recorded interesting events that show Nehemiah's:

• Personal humility. Ch. 1 shows how upon hearing all the bad news about his “company” (or people) - the Israelites, he prayed earnestly to God. He sincerely asked for mercy and forgiveness, identified with and took full responsibility for the Israelites' sins and state of despair. Conversely, Ch. 9 also showed how Nehemiah with Ezra upon completion of the wall led the Israelites to total repentance in front of their God, in which they credited everything to the works of His hands. Throughout the book it was evident Nehemiah's dependence and faith in his God, not on himself.

• Professional will. Nehemiah set the objectives and followed them without ceasing. He pushed forward despite terrible accusations thrown against him, intimidations, murder plots, the scarce resources, his own people who oppressed one another, and many others. His difficulties were great, but it was apparent that he was not about to quit; his resolve only grew stronger as he invoked God's help regularly.

There you have it, a level 5 leader from 2500 years ago!

Personal Humility + Professional Will, Biblical Style

As an MBA candidate learning about leadership, the author has difficulties in understanding how [personal humility + professional will] can be genuinely/sincerely believed in deep inside and acted upon? How can we learn to be humble? Is humility a skill? A state of mind that we can be trained/disciplined to be humble, perhaps? Or a logical consequence of other reality that we need to believe in first before we can totally subscribe to humility?

I would argue that the Nehemiah example demonstrated that Christianity provides a coherent point and an inroad for understanding true humility as well as professional will. Christianity shows that true humility can come when we truly feel that there is a greater being out there than us. It is more than a mere skill or attitude; it is a skill and attitude that is a byproduct of the person's worldview of acknowledging the existence of a Superior Being far more superior from him/her self. The problem of putting humans in that place, instead of God is that the moment we perceive ourselves to be comparable/superior than another person, in that moment our humility evaporates. Our humility will constantly fluctuate in relation to the people to whom we compare ourselves with. I am also still struggling to understand true humility apart from the framework of a Greater Being: if I am suppose to be humble and confident with myself relying on my own achievements, then why/how can I genuinely be humble? Christianity, on the other hand simply says that we are the created beings and God is the Creator; there is not a tiniest hope that we can compare to Him nor we can accomplish anything apart from His “permissions” as the Creator. That realization then should yield a deep humility out of the Christian's heart. I am not saying that all Christians are humble; I am saying that all Christians are supposed to be humble because of the logical consequence of their faith requires them to be so.

I was so excited last week when Jack Welch, the “Manager of the Century” came to my school and shared about topics from leadership, business schools and even Enron. He increased market capitalization of General Electric by $400 billion during his watch. His one great advice that I hold true is when he said “There is only one thing which will take you to the top, nothing else: it is to always over-deliver”. Surprise your boss. Make him/her looks good. Give more than what was asked in your assignments. You do that as part of you habit and it will take you to the top. Christianity encourages its followers to work with such a professional iron will, especially if we consider our Boss the Creator. Should we, would we, could we make Him look good? With Jesus as the prime example of a “professional minister” to do God's will (John 4:34), we need to work as for the Lord rather than for men (Col 3:23-24). Welch's advice is on target, and it should even convict Christians more than others, since our Boss is not a just another Boss, He is the one who loves us and is willing to die for our sins!

In conclusion, I believe that Level 5 leadership is true and important, even more so nowadays. It was demonstrated a long time ago by a non-MBA, empirically discovered by a top research team, and affirmed in top business schools. Christianity and its message of love from God, more so, explain coherently the why of Level 5 Leadership.

“Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men; knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.” - The Bible.