Values-based leadership /

It has become quite fashionable today to decry a lack of values in society, and this lament has even carried over into management literature. One of the major trends in business books now is to stress the need for values, norms, social responsibility, stewardship, or trust in order to shape management--or more precisely--leadership. (In the organizational setting these terms are less likely to be used as code words representing hidden political or social agendas.) The Kuczmarskis are husband and wife; he heads a Chicago-based management consulting firm, she is executive vice president at the firm and an educator and trainer specializing in leadership skills. The Kuczmarskis hark back 100 years to when Emile Durkheim coined the term anomie to describe what they say was a similar era of normlessness with the same resulting sense of isolation and purposelessness. Their book is an attempt to teach managers leadership techniques that will help develop shared norms and values that all employees can subscribe to. ~--David Rouse

This study incorporates anthropologist Emile Durkheim's concept of ``anomie'' (isolation) among workers to explain what the authors perceive as the decline of values and the pervasive sense of detachment in the workplace triggered by extensive U.S. corporate downsizings in recent years. The authors, management consultants in Chicago, call for a ``war for values and norms'' and posit that businesses must adopt traditional ethical systems based on norms and shared values previously inculcated by schools, religion and the family. They have developed practical models and analyses of human behavior to formulate a framework for achieving this goal. Some of their observations, however, stretch credulity: ``Snack-Well cookies by Nabisco... communicate healthiness and implicitly suggest `good-for-you.' The value of taking care of ourselves is instilled in this product.'' Illustrations. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved