comparing and contrasting

Right now I'm reading two books for class. The Leadership Engine and The Dance of Change. Initially, the Dance of Change annoyed the crap out of me. It's gimmicky, often ponderous and uses stupid diagrams. But it's grown on me, and some of the guest writer sections are absolute gems.

The Leadership Engine is more trait theory masquerading as transformational leadership. "Leaders brush their teeth a certain way that's very leadery. " At one point, when talking about inspiring people, he cites two examples on the same page. A Service Master manager who went to the mat for his employees who were being mistreated by a surgeon. Great example. And a CEO at a company meeting who wore leiderhosen and had himself hoisted several hundred feet in the air to show the "heights" he wanted the company to meet.

Do you see any relation between these two events at all? One is ethical, genuine and couragous. The other; pagentry, goofy, and essentially a big internal stunt. This is supposed to be inspiring?

The you can practically see the author drooling all over Jack Welch's shoes. Interestingly enough, the other book for this class is Leading Change. I bought the wrong version of this book and didn't realize it till I'd been reading it for several weeks. I told the teacher and he said I could read the one I had instead. And that author thinks that Welch is the ultimate opporunist and has no real moral conviction or ethical foundation. I tend to agree. And the guy who wrote the Leadership Engine seems to fall into the same category. It's all about these traits that show up in more and amoral people; like the Built to Last guys, he seems to think that success is it's own reward, and ethics will naturally follow. Argrys would have a field day with this one.