Authentic Leadership

Authentic Leadership

By Bill George, Jossey-Bass, 2003,217 pages

List price: $27.95, ISBN: 0-7879-6913-3

The doctor was furious. The balloon catheter he was trying to insert into a patient's artery simply fell apart. Outraged, the doctor hurled the bloody catheter across the room at a man who was observing the procedure.

The target was Bill George, then chairman and CEO of Medtronic, the company that made the faulty catheter. George, who successfully ducked the flying implement, was in the room because he observed hundreds of medical procedures to learn what Medtronic did.

In Authentic Leadership, George issues a highly personal call for business leaders to become passionate about their work and for companies to put mission and employees ahead of stockholders.

Decrying the "high-ego personalities" who lead many companies into short-term financial gains and long-term ruin, George says success tempts leaders to try to replicate it by taking shortcuts.

George wants managers to become "authentic leaders," people who:

* Understand their own purpose. Leaders should know what really motivates them.

* Practice solid values. Having values doesn't mean attending a few business ethics courses; it means seeing the corporation as a community and the leader as a servant.

* Lead with heart. Leaders must engage employees' hearts as well as their minds. Leaders have to involve employees in a purpose greater than any of them. At Medtronic, that purpose was improving and prolonging the lives of patients who needed the company's devices. Under George's leadership, Medtronic engineers who designed pacemakers had to watch surgeons implant the devices they had designed. Patients visited the company to discuss how devices had helped them. The contacts made the employees' work more personal.

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* Establish enduring relationships. Employees expect a connection with their leaders, yet many managers fear getting close to employees and hide behind a false persona.

* Demonstrate self-discipline. The disciplined leader doesn't let ego or emotions reign but is "easy and predictable" to work with.

George adds that being authentic doesn't mean being soft. Tough assessments of talent, accountability, serious standards for performance and challenging meetings are part of his prescription. He lists pitfalls that stymie growth, discusses how acquisitions can't be relied on for corporate growth and calls for improvements in corporate boards.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Society for Human Resource Management
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group