Mary Szela: What level 5 leaders are made of

Mary Szela Photo Credit: Multi-culturalsolutions.com

This blog about Mary Szela, SVP at Abbott’s Global Strategic Marketing & Services and Pharmaceutical Products Group, defines an effective leader as recounted from Jim Collins’ book Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don't, which introduces a new leadership vocabulary – Level 5 leadership.

Through the years, many have raved about the fundamentals of effective leadership and most of them have a CEO-centric view of the corporate world. But there’s more to leadership than meets the eye. Leaders possess executive capabilities which determine their effectiveness to lead the company toward sustained success.

Mary Szela Photo Credit: Examiner.com

Collins states that effective leaders are the Level 5 leaders who are able to move their companies from mediocrity to a sustained excellence through humility and will. Leaders like Mary Szela believe that the Level 5 leadership reaps rewards beyond monetary such as employee loyalty and good teamwork.

Mary Szela Photo Credit: Womaneer.wordpress.com

Contrary to popular belief, Level 5 leaders aren’t that larger than life, heroic figures. They are humble yet willful leaders who put the company’s welfare first before feeding their own ego. They understand that leadership is not for them but for the long-term interest of the company of which they are only just a part. They may be humble, but they’re not the wallflower type. They’ll do what it takes to elevate the company from good to great no matter how painful it will be.

To learn more about Mary Szela and the strategies for effective leadership, go to MarySzela.Livejournal.com.

On world-wide acquisition: Mary Szela and global strategic marketing

Mary Szela is the Senior Vice President of the Global Strategic Marketing and Services department at Abbott Laboratories. She graduated from the University of Illinois where she also started her career. After more than two decades of excellent work at Abbott Laboratories, she now leads the pharmaceutical products group toward global success.

Mary Szela Photo Credit: Globalleadershipdesign.com

Abbott Laboratories, among other multinational companies, considers the competency of people like Ms. Szela as significant factors in attaining its company goals, particularly in penetrating the global market.




Global marketing, also called International marketing, requires the extension of techniques that are implemented at the home country of the company. From market identification down to the marketing mix, global marketing executives like Mary Szela step up and boost the company’s efforts to implement marketing principles beyond national boundaries and across the globe.

Mary Szela Photo Credit: Multi-culturalsolutions.com

Setting global strategies is not an easy undertaking. There are many factors to be considered by the companies that aim to operate worldwide. QuickMBA points out that globalization may not apply to all industries, and companies opting to expand their scope should consider various drivers to determine their potential success including cost, customer, competition, and government.



With this, expertise is indeed vital, which in the case of Abbot Laboratories is not a problem with Mary Szela on board. The series of leadership positions that Ms. Szela has held at Abbott became her solid foundation to take on a more challenging role as SVP.

Mary Szela Photo Credit: http://Womaneer.wordpress.com

More information on Ms. Szela can be read at MarySzela.Livejournal.com.