cover image Leveraging People and Profit: The Hard Work of Soft Management

Leveraging People and Profit: The Hard Work of Soft Management

Bernard A. Nagle, Perry Pascarella. Butterworth-Heinemann, $29.95 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-7506-9961-7

The concept of servant leadership, wherein managers put the interests of their ""stakeholders"" first--these being employees, shareholders, suppliers and the people who live in the communities they serve--has been around for years. Still, understanding and implementation of the concept remain elusive. Nagle, a consultant for Price Waterhouse, and Pascarella, former editor of Industry Week, do an excellent job of explaining the origin of the idea and how it can be a source of competitive advantage. Even better, the authors spell out how an executive can build trust in an organization and also ensure that the company remains focused on achieving a profit while still serving stakeholders. But the book is not without flaws. For example, the boxes that repeat verbatim material that appears in nearby text are distracting. And the authors' coining of the word altrupreneur--""one who conducts the affairs of an enterprise with conspicuous regard for the welfare of others""--to describe the servant leader seems superfluous. But Nagle and Pascarella have gone a long way toward clarifying an increasingly important concept. (Sept.)