In the last a couple of years, the pendulum has swung completely back from the “leadership” talk to the fundamentals of “management”. In the 90s, “managers” are inferior drones to great leaders. Then there’re Enron and the internet bubble, that sure changed the perspective of management theory in some subtle ways.
Yes, great leaders still lead with great vision and pursuasion. But now people start to value great managers too. The “touchy feely” class at Stanford business school is the most popular elective class. I’m reading a really long article in recent issue of HBR: “What Great Managers Do” – talking about how to find individual strenghs and weaknesses in your group and design your strategy around those. Think about it, that is an 180 degree turn from the BHAG (Big Hairy Adacious Goals) days.