Rule #3: Leadership Is Confusing As Hell

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Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned on the "fasten seat belt" sign. Please return to your seats immediately! Make sure that your tray tables are in the upright and locked position, and please return your seat backs to their full, upright position. Now brace yourselves: We're headed for some turbulent times!

Not that the past five years weren't demonstrably nuts. They were. But they were nuts in a generally recognizable way. Never mind all of that easy-to-come-by venture capital and the ATM approach to IPO cash. What really matters is how the past five years challenged us all to rip off our neckties, shed our standard-issue business suits, and, most important, lose our Model T-type business thinking.

But that was the past five years. For the next five years, we're going to go from nuts to flat-out freakin' crazy. For the next five years, it's business on a wartime footing -- a high-stakes, high-risk, high-profile event that is filled with uncertainty and ambiguity. And clear-cut performance outcomes matter more than ever before. You can still invent your own career, be your own brand, and promote your own project -- you just gotta sprint and deliver.

Think of pre-1990 as the Age of Sucking Up to the Hierarchy. The Age of the Promise 'Em Everything Pitch lasted from 1995 to 2000. The next five years will be the Age of No-Bull Performance. Which means that we're going to see leadership emerge as the most important element of business -- the attribute that is highest in demand and shortest in supply. And that means that over the next five years, we're going to have to reckon with a new, unorthodox, untested, maybe just plain freaked-out list of leadership qualities: 50 ways of being a leader in freaked-out times.

1. Leaders on snorting steeds (the visionary greats!) are important. But great managers are the bedrock of great organizations. LEADERSHIP became sooooo coooool in the 1990s. Crank out THE VISION. Harangue the troops. Stand tall in the saddle. Management? That was for wusses, wimps, and dead-enders.

Well, I aim to amend all of that. Vision is dandy, but sustainable company excellence comes from a huge stable of able managers. If you don't believe me, then go read First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently (Simon & Schuster, 1999), by Gallup execs Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. Here's a boiled-down version of what they found: Great managers are an organization's glue. They create and hold together the scores of folks who power high-performing companies.

Stop being conned by the old mantra that says, "Leaders are cool, managers are dweebs." Instead, follow the Peters Principle: Leaders are cool. Managers are cool too!

2. But then again, there are times when this cult-of-personality stuff actually works! Okay, here goes the zig-zag, paradoxical path of leadership in freaked-out times. It's true that there are times of genuine corporate peril when no one other than a larger-than-life visionary leader can get the job done.

As far as I'm concerned, the first business leader who was able to establish a cult of personality around his tenure was Lee Iacocca. When he took over as Chrysler's chairman and CEO in 1978, that company was on its deathbed. Chrysler turned to him the way the country turns to charismatic leaders in times of war -- which is exactly how Iacocca characterized Chrysler's competitive situation. The Japanese, Iacocca said, were eating our lunch, and he was going to be the wartime leader to rally the troops. The point is, there are times when you really do need to turn to a leader who offers a broad, popular, galvanizing vision -- someone who can symbolize a new approach to business.

3. Leadership is confusing as hell. If we're going to make any headway in figuring out the new rules of leadership, we might as well say it up front: There is no one-size-fits-all approach to leadership. Leadership mantra #1: It all depends. Years ago, Yale professor of organization and management and professor of psychology Victor Vroom developed a model that was later adapted and popularized by Ken Blanchard. Their point: We need to think about situational leadership -- the right person, the right style, for the right situation.

I saw it at McKinsey & Co. when I went to work there. The firm had gotten offtrack operationally, so the partners elected Alonzo McDonald to be the managing partner. They didn't do this because they liked him (he wasn't the cuddly sort), but because he was the right guy to fix what was broken. McDonald did precisely what the partners wanted him to do but were unwilling to do themselves: He busted the weak performers, tightened up the control systems, and put the firm back on profitable ground. After which the partners said, "Enough!" -- and booted him straight to the White House to be assistant to president Jimmy Carter and director of the White House staff. Motto: The situation rules. Leader for all seasons? In your dreams!