How Can the 5-Act Leadership Model Help You Build a Lasting Career Legacy?

What Is “Self Less” Leadership and How Can It Transform Your Management Style?

Master the art of servant leadership with Len Jessup’s Self Less. Discover the difference between being “selfless” and “self-less,” learn how to overcome adversity in 5 acts, and find out why putting your team first is the ultimate strategy for organizational success.

Ready to stop managing and start truly leading? Read the full summary now to discover the 5-Act framework that turns ordinary managers into unforgettable servant leaders.

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Len Jessup, former president of Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California, shares his experiences, insights, and advice on how to take positive action. He stresses the importance of resilience and empathy, which he defines as having a mindset that is both “selfless” — putting others first — and “self-less” – acting to benefit others. While Jessup focuses mostly on his own story, he writes persuasively about the need to put others first at work and at home. He relies on “the five-act structure” used in ancient playwriting to give shape to his narrative and to pass along his leadership lessons.

Take-Aways

• Great leaders are “selfless” and “self less.”
• “Selfless” means putting others first. Being “self less” means engaging in actions that benefit others.
• Act 1: Origins – Your background can help or hinder you.
• Act 2: Beliefs – Believe in your leadership path.
• Act 3: Adversity – Identify sources of opposition and work to overcome them.
• Act 4: Impact – Life is short.
• Act 5: Legacy – Plan your legacy now.

Summary

Great leaders are “selfless” and “self less.”

Good leaders work to become attuned to the important needs of the people they lead and dwell less on their own concerns. Being a leader requires becoming selfless.

Len Jessup learned about the importance of selflessness after his divorce when he first began bringing his two small children to his home in northern Idaho for a few days of quality dad time. This involved picking up the kids, driving them to his house, preparing their dinner, reading bedtime stories, and tucking them into bed.

One night, after settling his children, Jessup poured himself a glass of Cabernet, and stared out at the scenic beauty around his house. Initially, he felt despair and loneliness and a strong hunger for adult companionship. It didn’t help that while he sat there, crying and feeling sorry for himself, he could hear Coldplay’s lyrics in the background, “The tears come streaming down your face when you lose something you can’t replace. When you love someone, but it goes to waste.”

At the same time, Jessup also felt a degree of happiness. He was pleased to have his children with him. He felt that he was becoming more successful as a single dad. Before his divorce, Jessup acknowledges, he was selfish, but afterward – once he was faced with sole responsibility for his visiting children – he realized he had to put himself aside and focus on them. He had to become “self less.”

“Whether a university, corporation, government or non-profit, you need to include people rather than exclude them.”

Also soon after Jessup’s divorce, the business school where he taught asked him to chair a peer committee. He had to set aside some of his personal aspirations – to earn strong teaching evaluations, capture lucrative grants, and write attention-getting academic journal articles. Those achievements would have focused on him alone, but as a committee chair, he had to become selfless and heed his members’ needs. Jessup later became the dean of his school, which meant an even stronger focus on his colleagues’ metrics and more distance from his personal ambitions.

“Selfless” means putting others first. Being “self less” means engaging in actions that benefit others.

Being “selfless” means focusing on others’ needs, not your own. When you break “selfless” into “self less,” the word “self” becomes a verb which means acting more in the interests of other people and less in your own interests, literally doing self less.

Author Jim Collins, who advanced the concept of “level-five” leadership, explained that level-five leaders are self-aware and humble yet driven to succeed. For Jessup, the best leaders move one notch above level five: they advance their team members’ concerns above their own.

Organizations run by selfless leaders work “bottom-up,” not “top-down.” They are democratic, not autocratic; “flat and lean,” not hierarchal; inclusive not exclusive; collaborative, not proprietary; and open, not closed. In such organizations, leaders don’t set themselves up as the smartest people in the room. Rather, they surround themselves with even smarter team members – a testimony to their acuity as leaders who strive for the best possible results.

“Selfless leadership [is]…a powerful tool for leading others through transformational organizational changes.”

In such organizations, a team’s shared vision and fulfillment counts more than the leader’s vision or fulfillment. These leaders work, take risks, express gratitude, offer service, and strive to influence their team members positively.

Success at a high level requires the wholehearted buy-in of those you lead, whether a small team or a full workforce. Without their concurrence, you’ll encounter resistance. To gain the support of people you’re leading, don’t be the “sage on the stage.” Instead, be the “guide on the side.” As you assume this public role, remain introspective. Effective leadership requires self-examination, delving into who you are, how you can improve, and why you do what you do. Then, look for ways to be of more service, a goal that unfolds in five acts, as follows:

Act 1: Origins – Your background can help or hinder you.

Jessup’s early life included both positive and negative influences. His mother showered him with love and attention, but his father was emotionally distant. Nevertheless, Jessup feels he benefited from both his parents.

“I’ve long felt a strong commitment to pay it forward by helping others have successful higher education experiences and the same opportunities I had.”

To determine the impact of your origins, ask yourself these questions.

• How have formative factors in your origins affected your current situation?
• How do you imagine your origins will help shape your future direction?
• Have your origins had a largely positive or a largely negative influence?

Act 2: Beliefs – Believe in your leadership path.

Serving as a leader is never easy. You must exhibit the right values consistently while pursuing a path you undertake for the right reasons. To feel effective, you must be sure you’re cutting the best possible trail for those you lead.

Demonstrate your faith in the approach you’ve chosen, then work to secure your employees’ enthusiastic belief and support. Your sincere dedication will inspire theirs.

“What are your core beliefs and values? What is truly important to you? How does that drive you or limit you? And as a leader, how might your understanding of your and your team’s beliefs and values help you to lead, especially in times of change?”

Be sure that “critical limiting beliefs” aren’t pulling you down. Identify any beliefs that are blocking your progress and seek ways to move beyond them. Consider which limiting beliefs may be stalling your team, so you can curtail their negative impact and build your team members’ capabilities and confidence.

During Jessup’s presidency at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, he and his team racked up several major accomplishments. However, some members of the 13-member Board of Regents attacked his character and reputation. As the media routinely reported, the attacks were baseless, but they were hard to take.

To give Jessup a sense of perspective, his wife Kristi reminded him that of the 2.2 million people in Las Vegas, only “four or five” – a few sniping board members – wanted him to leave. Her support helped Jessup laugh about his troubles, keep his head up, and focus. As he learned, everyone needs encouragement to stay positive.

Act 3: Adversity – Identify sources of opposition and work to overcome them.

Adversity can appear in many forms. Sometimes it’s environmental – such as the pandemic, a natural disaster, or a recession – and no leader can control it. But adversity can also result from the actions of negative people on your team or in your organization.

Often those who oppose you and undermine your leadership are working in areas outside your authority. That calls on you to keep learning until you find ways to accomplish your goals despite their interference. To overcome opposition, serve and support your team so you and they succeed despite any opponents.

“I [have] frequently encountered people who actively tried to sabotage our efforts to move the organization forward.”

It’s a tough world, and success is hard to achieve. Often trying to do well as a leader – or a human being – will stretch you to “the edge of your strength, endurance, patience, and resilience.” If that is the heavy price of leadership in your situation, only you can decide if it is worthwhile for you to pay that price or if you’d rather seek better alternatives for yourself and those you lead and serve.

Act 4: Impact – Life is short.

Life is fleeting, so consider the positive impact you can have right now. What will it be like, will others feel it, and what changes do you need to make the mark you envision? Look within your organization to identify those you can affect positively. How will you serve them? What contributions can you make to help them spend their time not only more productively but also more meaningfully? Once you answer those questions, plan how you will proceed.

“Leave it all out on the field.”

Investigate whether your employees have everything they need to do their jobs. Ensure that the people in your workforce have the resources and time to accomplish — and enjoy — their work. Build in fun and good times. This strategy is practical as well as rewarding because people who enjoy their jobs perform to a higher standard. Statistics indicate that most employees don’t enjoy their jobs and don’t fully engage at work. To address this issue as a leader, spend time on little perks and big celebrations.

Find small, practical steps you can take to increase your employees’ happiness. Such daily actions will vary from company to company – but you’re an insider, so you should be able to discern the needs of your workforce. Come up with a list of specific steps you can take as the boss to help your people derive more meaning and joy from their work.

While leaders must serve others, such service doesn’t come easily. You need courage to be of true service.

“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” (John Wayne)

Do what you can, and do it now, even while you’re trying to determine how to have an impact. Make the most of your time and your ability to be a positive influence on your family and friends, on your peers, subordinates and company, and even on the world around you. You can make a difference to others in many ways.

Act 5: Legacy – Plan your legacy now.

Leaders must always challenge themselves and their people to do their best. Jessup estimates that he raised nearly a billion dollars in donations and in-kind gifts, such as “software, hardware, land, buildings, and artwork,” for the universities he served. When he first began his academic career, he never thought about fundraising. He focused on teaching and research. He soon discovered that as a young professor with no funding, he couldn’t accomplish his ambitious plans to be a solid teacher and an accomplished researcher.

“You’re never too old, successful, experienced, or smart to benefit from the mentoring of someone else.”

That’s when Jessup focused on something new, philanthropy. He identified potential scholarship and research donors and then determined the best ways to get to know them and successfully solicit their contributions. He achieved solid success as a fundraiser, and he acknowledges all the people who helped him.

Jessup regards the money he brought to his schools as his legacy. He cites it to urge other leaders to examine the lessons they are learning and teaching daily because those lessons will become their legacy in time. Each person is in charge of ensuring that friends and family can look at his or her legacy with pride.

“Leadership is often a gift and privilege in being allowed to experience moments with others when they are at their best.”

Jessup explains that while he made mistakes during his academic career, he learned from them. He recommends that leaders remain “self less as a state of action,” the path to learning how to do more, do it better, and leave a worthwhile legacy.

About the Author

In 2024, management information systems expert Len Jessup, PhD, stepped down as president of Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, CA. Today, he is a speaker, coach, and consultant to organizations and individuals.