The military was a natural school for movement and delivery procedures that also served him in good stead later. Another thing that Smith took from the Marine Corps was a hands on management quality based upon fairness in evaluation and treatment. This quality has never failed him ("Frederick w. smith," 2012). Another thing that Smith has not hesitated to do is to cut the perks for the top executives in the company when profits are low. A good example of this was Smith's own compensation which dropped by two percent due to the economy. While it may seem to be common sense to cut costs from the top down in a company during a recession, it has in recent American history been a rarity for American CEOs who have continued to rake in large perks while their lower ranking employees felt the pain exclusively. This flies in the face of Smith's lead from the front attitude in which he believes that it is necessary to set a consistent example for his subordinates and not ask them to do anything he would not do himself, including accepting smaller pay raises and perks (Bomkamp, 2011).

III-Level Five Leader or Not

In short, Smith has exhibited outstanding leadership qualities that combine the best of the Yale business school and of the U.S. Marine Corps. He exhibits many the same qualities of leadership as Darwin Smith in our classroom text. In the opinion of this author, he was a fully developed Level 5 leader who embodied all five layers of the leadership pyramid. As the text states, the first four of the five layers of the pyramid are self explanatory. However, our review of Smith exhibits that he has what it takes to be on the pyramid...

This is because he believes in hands on management, leadership from the front, delegation of authority, public praise of a good job and fair treatment for employees in order to get loyalty to the company.
To review, Smith's leadership of the FedEx Corporation and has affected the placement of the company in the market against its competitors. Leadership is a contagious quality. He has spread it far and wide in the FedEx company as Darwin Smith did in our text at Kimberly Clark in 1971 when he made a good company even better. This also was the case with Colman Mockler, the CEO of Gillette from 1975 to 1991. He fended off three crisis periods. While our textbook examples deal with CEOs of existing companies. Even more so, Smith exhibited them in charge of a brand new company that boldly filled an unfilled market niche that no one had before. This is leadership that deserves to be at the top of the pyramid at number 5.