Leadership Now Includes Nurturing.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey

It should come as little surprise that the Patton-type approach to leadership is dying our The finance department, and the larger corporation it sirs in, are being shaped by new forces and new ideas, and the successful executive needs to attend to them. Asked to choose between "my way or the highway," today's mobile, self-aware employee is likely to start gassing up the car.

The consensus these days is that leadership is a learned set of skills that need constant refreshment. The old way, in which leadership was assumed by dint of authority, is largely moribund, and scores of consultants and management experts are quick to identify some of the tenets of a new school of leadership that relies less on giving orders than on enlisting help and setting, and striving for, common goals.

In their book, Leadership for Dummies, for instance, Marshall Loeb and Stephen Kindell argue that leadership begins with identifying a goal, then: 1) eliciting the cooperation of others; 2) listening well; and 3) putting the needs of others above your own. Those notions are far removed from the chain-of-command model that worked with troops in the field and for corporate America for many years after World War II, but with institutional loyalty a thing of the past, consultants argue, managers have to create an environment in which employees can grow and gain responsibility.

A key idea reverberating through the literature these days is empowerment. "Management typically consists of a set of contractual exchanges -- 'you do this for that reward,"' writes Warren Bennis in his book, Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge. "The result, at best, is compliance; at worst, you get a spiteful obedience. The result of leadership is completely different: ft is empowerment ... [and] an organizational culture that helps employees generate a sense of meaning in their work and a desire to challenge themselves to experience success."

"Managers attain a sense of completion; leaders make progress toward a destination," contends R. Douglas Marsh, president of Organization Dynamics in Branford, Conn. "Leaders need not necessarily be good managers, so long as they can empower others to plan, organize, direct and control [processes] to address the tasks necessary to successfully pursue a given vision -- then recognize performance."

Stars Are Dimmed

That does make the individual star manager less of a linchpin in the organization. "Gone are the days of one person being the superstar...