Information, Intelligence and Decision

Abstract

Not so many years ago it was fashionable to equate management with something called ‘leadership’, and instructive books about great leaders of the past were written for the edification and inspiration of the managers of Organisations. To be a leader, it appears, was to be Rabbit in a captainish mood, in The House at Pooh Corner. It was a matter of inspiring the ‘chaps’ with the team spirit, of being charismatic, of motivating (of getting people to do something that they believe tedious or downright unpleasant) and of exercising command. In those days management exuded an aura of the celebrated führer-prinzip: ‘It was a Captainish sort of day, when everybody said, “Yes, Rabbit” and “No, Rabbit” and waited until he had told them.’ Unsurprisingly the image of the manager as leader has faded and been superseded. Today the manager is an analytical decision maker, a sort of impassive, erudite judge: he receives information, considers it, weighs it and makes a calm, wise decision. WOL has replaced Rabbit.