November 13 1995

ARTICLE TOOLS

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The Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make, by Hans Finzel (Victor, 200 pp.; $10.99, cloth).

Scanning a stack of recent magazine articles, I was surprised to find a new theme to add to the already intimidating list of disasters looming as we approach the next millennium. We have been warned about the increasing gap between rich and poor, and the social disintegration that will result if the trend continues. We have heard the dire predictions of global warming. But now another threat is on the horizon: We are becoming a nation led by boomers.

* "Perhaps a brilliant new generation of boomer CEOs—their eyes on the horizon as much as the bottom line—is about to burst upon us. But don't hold your breath" (Marshall Loeb, "Fortune," September 1994).

* "Is this [boomer] generation unfit to lead? Will we ever get our act together, or has the toll of peace, affluence and self-indulgence rotted away all sense of proportion and propriety?" (Joe Klein, "Newsweek," Dec. 19, 1994).

* "It is not coincidental that the crisis of leadership arises at a time when a baby boomer sits in the White House … " (Lance Morrow, "Time," Dec. 5, 1994).

In the midst of such negativism, it is refreshing to see a member of this beleaguered generation present a cogent, optimistic outlook. Although the title of Hans Finzel's "The Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make" may seem to ring of fault-finding, it actually provides preventive medicine and practical directives for present-day leaders and those to come.

Finzel, the (boomer) executive director of CB International (formerly Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society), acknowledges that "good leaders seem to be a scarce commodity today." But rather than attributing this to the putative foibles of his generation, ...