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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.