Leadership: 'authentic leadership' qualities described.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey

You might not expect a much-admired former CEO to be speaking out about the failure of his generation to provide good leadership. But that's just what Bill George, former chairman and CEO of medical-technology company Medtronic Inc., offered in a May speech at The Conference Board's 2004 Leadership Development Conference in New York.

George is credited for taking the company's market capitalization from $1.1 billion to $60 billion during his 12-year tenure, during which time he "served at the pleasure of the board"--which could have fired him at any time. To him, leaders have strayed recently by focusing on strategies to maximize shareholder value that were built on financial outcomes.

"My generation has let us down in a lot a ways, and I hope the next generation will do it much better," he said. The real key to building shareholder value, he said, is getting employees aligned around the company's mission.

George is retired but serves on three boards of directors--Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Novartis AG and Target Corp.--and teaches leadership and corporate accountability at the Harvard Business School. He took issue with the widely held view that a company's purpose is to serve its shareholders. "If you have de-motivated employees, you cannot improve shareholder value," he argued.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"I didn't invent, make or sell anything. It's my job to create the environment for you to do your job," he said of the leader's role. Since "90 percent of business failures are...