Prof. John Yang: Mastering Five Levels of Leadership
Jun 21-2023
The Five Levels of Leadership, authored by John C. Maxwell and translated into Chinese by Prof. John Yang and Wang Jinjie, has landed in Chinese bookshops. It became the focal point of the latest Chengze Forum and Cross-Cultural Leadership Forum at the NSD, with Prof. Yang sharing its major messages.
Leadership is a core issue confronting enterprises in today’s fast-changing world, said Prof. Yang, who is NSD Professor of Management, former Co-Dean of Bimba, and Alumni Foundation Chair Professor. His co-author Wang Jinjie is NSD lecturer. Whereas management is conducted in a stable environment, leadership is needed to drive innovation when stability is shattered. That explains the enormous attention accorded to leadership these days, said Prof. Yang.
Over his 20 plus years working at Peking University, Prof. Yang has been greatly influenced by three leadership gurus: Peter Drucker, John C. Maxwell, and Inamori Kazuo. Drucker fused management with changes in environments, which constitutes an important idiosyncrasy of leadership; Kazuo derived his leadership theory from oriental cultures and set store by trust, motivation, and the power of the nature of the mind, said Prof. Yang.
He recalled Maxwell’s well-attended speech at BiMBA in 2006, in which a student asked ‘What is leadership?’ and Maxwell replied ‘Leadership is influence.’ According to Maxwell, leadership is not about positions or symbols, but personal charisma. Inspired by such fresh thoughts, Prof. Yang switched his research focus from organizational management to leadership in 2008 and published the book PKU Leadership Ten Lessons in 2009.
What Prof. Yang and Wang Jinjie translated is the 10th anniversary edition. The five levels of leadership are Position, Permission, Production, People Development, and Pinnacle, forming a structure similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In the forum, Prof. Yang expounded on the criteria and key points of each level.
Prof. Yang has built a three-meta leadership model, with three intersecting circles rooted in the Yin and Yang philosophy. In contrast, Maxwell’s five levels of leadership, he said, is linear and one-directional, based on rigorous Western concepts.
