Bosses

In this inconsequential management study, Wall, who teaches management at the Univ. of Missouri, talks to a curious assortment of some 50 hands-on (his phrase) leaders, workers as dissimilar as the supervisor of an assembly line, manager of a bar, maintenance head of an urban bus system, hospice director, an armed robber, a hit man""even criminals can be excellent leaders,'' we're told here. Methodology is unexplained, leaving the reader to wonder how the interviewees were selected (how did Wall nab the crooks?) and where the interviews took place; lacking the felt presence of the interviewer, the pieces give no clues as to how Wall elicited responses, whether his questioning determined the direction of the discourse. From his probings of these so-called bosses, the author draws self-evident deductions about management styles and job pressuresalthough we could all learn from the principle espoused by the hit man: when his job gets stressful, he takes time off. (November 5 That R.F.K. is an accredited folk hero is not left in doubt by the husband-wife authors, Kennedy-watchers whose own archives provided much material for this biographyin addition to their interviews with Rose and Ted Kennedy and othersand who themselves add a grace note to the familiar familial tale and legend of Bobby. Tracking the transformation of an unconcerned R.F.K. into the ``Kennedy who cared the most,'' the Davids pay considerable attention to his youth, providing a fresh, interesting portrait and a definition of the qualities that formed his personality for the first 35 years, then the influences that transformed his conscience during the last seven. R.F.K.'s character did not change ``one bit,'' according to the authors, but his goals did. As in his younger years, he was to remain something of a prigabout Marilyn Monroe, the Davids concede only the possibility of a sexual relationship between thempious in his religion, tenacious, abrasive, trigger-tempered. Neither totally adulatory nor sensationalist, this is a Kennedy book sure to find readers, and praise and criticism, as all Kennedy books inevitably do. Photos. (November