A Time for Leadership: Global Perspectives from an Accelerated European Marketplace.

• Author: HOLTZMAN, HENRY

John R. Childress

Leadership Press

Los Angeles, Calif.; 2000

196 pages, $25.00

As you contemplate a computer screen darkened by yet another power failure, listen for the laughter of closet technophobes as they whisper, "I told you so." Then let your heart fill with pity. They're becoming extinct and they know it. Even in Europe.

Author Childress interviewed more than 60 CEOs of major European business organizations and all of them make essentially the same point:

"External forces and multiple factors, any one of which would throw most companies off-kilter, are already compelling businesses to behave differently. Computing power continues to expand, forcing us to re-evaluate how we manage information.

"European companies have to get out into the global environment in a major way, and at the same time do business very differently within Europe in order to cut costs, improve quality and reduce the time it takes to get products to market. To change the ways in which things are done, we have to fundamentally shift how we do business. And that takes leadership! Change must be led--it can't be mandated."

There is an unusual, if not unique, twist to the book. The advice it offers comes from European CEOs, who mostly cite U.S. CEOs as the source for their ideas. Strangely enough, the U.S. sources of advice may be talking the talk, but comparatively few are walking the walk. In other words, not only are leadership concepts just as valid on both sides of the Atlantic, so is the need to implement them.

That's one reason why the chapter headed "Shadow of the Leader" may be the pivotal point of the book for American readers. Childress points out that companies fail not only through poor sales results and under-capitalization, but also because of classic brain-drain brought on by slumping morale. According to the author's findings, some of the most basic causes for this include:

* "Expenses and salaries being cut everywhere in the organization except on the top tier.

* "Teamwork touted as a core...