Softening the manager's hard edges

By Fast Company, May 2006 Monday, 22 May 2006

A new consultancy called Worth Ethic, run by husband and wife team Kate Ludeman and Eddie Erlandson, earns $3m a year consulting top executives on how to soften their hard edges. These 'Alpha Execs' got where they are because they have strong ambition, drive and tough leadership qualities. But 'Alphas' have their dark side, which in today's more collegiate and collaborative working environment is toxic.

There are four Alpha types: commanders, visionaries, strategists and executors who can be dangerously domineering, overconfident, smug or impatient. After extensive feedback from peers and staff, collected together in a 40-page impossible-to-ignore document, the Alpha Exec is encouraged to recognise he has a 'problem'.

If this works, the healing process begins and in theory the exec pops out the other end of the process a much improved model. Famous Alpha Execs are Jack Welch (Commander), Richard Branson (Visionary), Michael Eisner (Strategist) and Sam Walton (Executor). Organisations who have called in Worth Ethic, according to the article, are Dell, eBay, Microsoft, the Pentagon and the Boston Red Sox.

Source: Taming the Alpha Exec
Andrew Park
Fast Company May 2006
Review by Morice Mendoza