"Pros on executive leadership stress execution, whether you're running the Giants or GE."

By JOSEPH R. PERONE
Staff Reporter of THE STAR-LEDGER

By any measure, Tom Coughlin was a winning entrepreneur. In just two years, his start-up shot to the top of his industry: the National Football League.

As coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, though, he earned the nickname Tom the Tyrant. Players, for example, had to wear jackets and ties on the road; they couldn't wear jewelry on the field and they were even barred from crossing their legs during team meetings.

Coughlin, like a turnaround artist in the corporate world, is now trying to revive the Giants. Business leaders know the challenge he faces in rallying an organization adrift, one filled with talent and promising opportunities.

The question is how to get there. For Coughlin, and most top leaders in business, it often comes down to this: Do you use the iron fist or the velvet glove?

"The taskmaster can be effective, but if he takes a Capt. Bligh approach, there will be mutiny," said Tom Massey, a business performance coach in Oklahoma City. "On the other hand, people will bust their rears for leaders who care about them."

Taskmasters run the gamut. There was hard-nosed Lee Iacocca, who rescued Chrysler in the 1980s from near bankruptcy. Larry Bossidy, the hulking ex-baseball pitcher, transformed AlliedSignal from a group of sleepy industrial fiefdoms into the modern conglomerate that is now Honeywell.

Some take intimidation to a high science.

Art Hawkins, former chief executive of battery maker Exide, sometimes took testosterone pills to be more aggressive during staff meetings, according to author Judith Glaser. Hawkins was sent to prison in 2002 for selling defective batteries to Sears Roebuck. Al Dunlap, former head of Sunbeam, was nicknamed Chainsaw Al for his ruthless, take-no-prisoners approach to cost-cutting. He was eventually ousted from the appliance maker due to an accounting scandal.

"The heavy-fisted, intimidating leader is not accepted anymore by a sophisticated work force," said Glaser, author of "Discovering the Power of We" and president of Benchmark Communications, Inc. an executive coaching firm in New York.

Leaders must find ways to expand their inner circle to make decision-making more inclusive without being touchy-feely, she said.

"It used to be that five senior people in the company would figure out what to do and send down a decision like Moses coming down the mountain," she said. "Effective leaders enlarge the circle of people to meet the challenges facing the company."

Managers should not try to be Vince Lombardi if their personality is closer to Pee Wee Herman, experts said.

"If they can't pull off the taskmaster role, they will fail," said Michael Berman, a partner in CPath Solutions, an executive outplacement firm in New York.

Velvet glove CEOs include people like Patricia Russo, head of Lucent Technologies, which turned its first profit last September after 13 quarterly losses, and General Motors Chief Executive Rick Waggoner, who hired two top outsiders to improve products and finances, respectively, while he focused on the big picture. Experts say both are keen listeners who surround themselves with good people and give them the freedom to develop.

Former Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda and former General Electric Chairman Jack Welch both had a zeal for winning and pushed their teams to higher performance, said Joseph Weintraub, associate professor of management at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., who was a consultant to GE and the Dodgers.'

But each had a different way of dealing with personnel.

"Lasorda had emotional intelligence and knew that you don't treat every player the same," Weintraub said. "Welch spent a lot of time on training and developing people, but he was also unforgiving."

Executives have to be flexible enough to know when to give their organization a swift kick or a warm hug, experts said.

"If you don't ease up after a while, talented people will leave because they don't need the grief," said Ed Gubman, partner in Strategic Talent Solutions of Northfield, Ill., and author of "The engaging leader: Winning with today's free agent work force." '

The pressure of running a public companies sometimes results in heavy-handed management, said Kevin Cashman, chief executive of LeaderSource, an executive coaching firm in Minneapolis.

"Right now in corporate America there is an unbelievable drive for short-term financial results," he said. "The organizations have become more tactical than strategic." .

By contrast, some European companies focus on more than profits. They concentrate on "triple-bottom line," Cashman said. That means they measure customer and employee satisfaction and retention as well as financial results, he said.

Some of the best leaders are at companies such as Dell, Federal Express, 3M, Wal-Mart, Avon, Southwest Airlines and Whirlpool, experts said, because they combine the drive for results with respect for employees and managers.

Executives have to get out of their ivory towers and spend quality time with their employees, said Albert Vicere, a professor of strategic leadership at Penn State's Smeal College of Business.

The late Sam Walton was well known for visiting his Wal-Mart stores and holding town meetings and breakfast sessions with workers, he said.

"He understood he had to inspire people to love the company as much as he did," Vicere said. "He knew how to work the troops, and was like a politician in a positive sense."