The author shares the lessons she learned from the book, Good to Great. Author Jim Collins and his team of researchers had spent five years studying the characteristics of companies that had gone from good to great and compared these companies with organizations that had yet to make the leap. The concepts and strategies they developed were based on hard data. The book was her constant companion for weeks. As she closed the cover, she could not help wondering whether its lessons on what it takes to advance from good to great would work for schools and school divisions and even state agencies. She was convinced they would. She stresses that Collins's description of Level 5 leadership forced her to examine her own leadership style and much of what she believed about the role of a leader in an organization. Collins convinced her she had placed too much emphasis on the dynamic, almost celebrity-like personality of the men and women she perceived as great leaders and hoped to emulate. Many of the traits she admired are common to Level 5 leaders but their ambitions and goals are for their organizations, not themselves.