Subscribe to the Three Star Leadership Blog

The Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check Wally's Three Star Leadership Letter

Request your free copy of Wally's Special Report: Managing Headcount in a Downturn.

Find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.

Find out more about Wally's coaching services.

Over at Fortune they're running an article titled: "How the fallout from the financial crisis could breed a new type of corporate leader." Don't drink that Kool-Aid.

We get this sort breathless, "new kind of leader," nonsense whenever there's a crisis. Here are two examples of what's being said this round.

Jim Collins "thinks that legislative, not executive, skills are now ascendant." Presumably these will be humble, Level 5, leaders that practice their legislative skills.

David Gergen suggests that "The CEO of the future is going to have to be someone who deals well with government." That was being said at least as long ago as 1972, when Reg Jones took over GE.

New kinds of leadership won't head off the crises of the future. Neither will practices or regulation designed to prevent the last crisis. That's just the business version of generals preparing for the last war.

There are two dangers. One is that the crisis most likely to do you in is the one unlike any crisis you've ever seen.

The other is a basic systemic situation that amplifies human nature. It starts when a company or several companies discover a new way to make money, one that seems safe. Think securitizing mortgages.

As those companies do well, other companies copy what they're doing. Many of them don't look at the underlying logic or risk.

It's enough that others are making money. They want to get their share. Besides, shareholders and the press are clamoring for growth and profitability. It's frighteningly hard to stay away from the business practices others seem to be using to make tons of money.

Jamie Dimon, the Chairman of JP Morgan Chase is held up as one business leader that didn't get caught up in the securitization frenzy. He's since said that "We stayed away from structured investment vehicles because they had no business purpose for real clients."

But back in 2005, Dimon's position was criticized by the business and investment communities. One article was headlined "Morgan Chase's risk-averse boss loses key staff and growth capability."

The big problem is that it takes a lot of guts to swim against the tide. You've got to hang in there when pretty much everyone says you're wrong. And you have to hang in there long enough to be proved right.

We don't need a new kind of leader for that. We just need leaders with judgment and guts. And they're likely to be just as rare now as ever.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.

Request your free copy of Wally's Special Report: Managing Headcount in a Downturn.

Request your free copy of "Meeting the Challenges of the Boomer Brain Drain: An integrated approach."

Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.

Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.

Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.