Bruce, I hope we meet at some point... you and I share very similar leadership philosophies. I like your holiday example as well. A quote I like is "Leadership is a serious meddling in people's life". Robert Greenleaf has also written a great deal about the Servant Leader (more recently, Ken Blanchard has written a book with this title also). He believes that as leaders, we are servants of the people we lead and we hold their development 'in trust'. We are not superior to them or 'over' them. That doesn't mean we are buddies - also a problem. As a leader, we help a person grow (for the needs of the business we are part of) from where they are to where they can and need to be. Lou Russell