It was probably one of the bloodiest yet unheralded boardroom massacres ever. In the 1980s and early 1990s, with the emergence of the super-CEOs, every so-called master of the corporate universe was swinging an axe to 're-engineer' and flatten corporate organisations. After this hollowing out, one can be forgiven for thinking that managers have been rendered extinct.
But after the global financial crisis and the spectacular fall of CEOs, there are indications of a backlash against corporate levelling, a reassessment that could herald the resurrection of those once-demonised managers.
In their book, Manager Redefined, Tom Davenport and Stephen Harding have taken on the mission of getting managers in from the cold and back at the heart of business management. Both authors are senior practitioners with Towers Watson, which specialises in human capital, risk and financial management consulting.
The authors offer a brief history of management and the changing role of the manager. They define the ideal character and responsibilities of the 21st century supervisor, and offer ways to measure managerial performance.
They start off with a sad survey of how managers have fallen from the pinnacles of industrial-age organisations to the disposable adjunct they have become.
A quote from super-CEO Jack Welch says it all: 'Managers slow things down. Leaders spark the business to run smoothly, quickly.'
