What's in a name? Boss? LO7131

Keith Cowan (72212.51@CompuServe.COM)
02 May 96 13:31:30 EDT

Replying to LO7041 --

>..."Everything I knew about Leadership was Wrong." The article profiles the
>guy who was formerly head of EDS and now head of Perot Systems. He used
>to think leadership was about being a hard ass and having no mercy on the
>people that worked for him. Now he knows leadership to be supportive of
>people as human beings. What I would suggest is that leadership has
>always been about the latter. I think this guy really had no idea at all
>about what leadership was about before when he was at EDS. Somehow he
>woke up to figure out that being a good leader is about affirming our
>shared humanity and taking actions that bring out the best in people in
>terms of how they relate to one another, their sense of commitment, and
>their motivation to perform that emerges from this commitment.
>jwoods@execpc.com (John Woods)

I would hasten to assert that Perot just found out about an alternative
style that seemed to be more effective in his current setting. Some
settings demand a hard ass style (fire fighters, literally and
figuratively, for example) while others will work better with the
leadership & empowerment style.

The differentiator might be the the clarity of the objective as in "Put
the fire out!" versus "Make more money?" and the ability of any individual
to relate their individual tasks to the objective ...Keith

-- 

Keith Cowan <72212.51@CompuServe.COM>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>