Having a crush on someone you may never meet is a little out there, I admit. Nevertheless, my crush on Jim Collins is very real and he means a lot to me. Jim Collins has focused his life’s work on business management, company sustainability and growth. We follow his teachings at Dasher and it shows.
Dasher exists to help people live happy healthy lives. We believe every human being is of equal value and deserves equal access to prosperity in the ways they define it. We live our purpose by communicating complex information to a variety of people in ways that help them make decisions that are in their best interests.
It’s a duty to take very seriously. Recently, I was conversing with Ed Dame, Chief Information and Security Officer at Dasher about our company’s data protection policies and how far we have come. Though Ed is extremely knowledgeable, he is also quite humble about his leadership success at Dasher.
Ed said, “We have come a long way and we still believe it is our responsibility to keep moving forward. Data is powerful, and when protected and used properly, it can be used to do more good in the world.” In other words, lead with purpose.
To me, that response from Ed sounded like Level 5 leadership, a concept developed by Jim Collins and explained in the book, Good to Great. According to Jim, “Level 5 leadership includes a powerful mixture of personal humility and indomitable will. They’re incredibly ambitious, but their ambition is first and foremost for the cause, for the organization and its purpose, not themselves.”
I brought this to Ed’s attention. He paused and thought about it for a few seconds, looked like he was ready to laugh at my mention of Jim Collins yet again, and said diplomatically, “An interesting area of leadership in technology and data security to me is trying to make it accessible for everyone. It is easy to slip into jargon and technical mumbo jumbo. My aim is to have our program be usable and easy to understand for everyone at Dasher.”
What a cool perspective! I never looked at it this way. From my vantage point, data security created competitive advantage. Though Ed did not disagree with that, he said that protecting data helps people—an ambition that is first and foremost for the cause.
It’s an example of Level 5 leadership at Dasher. That is Jim Collins’ teaching having a ripple effect on the world. Go, Jim!