Heroic leaders are out. The new focus is on creating a climate where employees are provided with a goal, then are allowed to organize themselves to meet the goal. This includes allowing leadership to emerge from the work group, not having outsiders imposed on them by absentee corporate managers. But there is a great deal more to post-heroic leaders.

1. They don't pretend to know all the answers, but are willing to listen to all.

2. They are accessible, not closed-off from workers by sentry-secretaries and heavy mahogany doors.

3. Their authority does not come from symbols like corner offices, thick carpets, expensive company cars or the power of professional life and death over subordinates.

4. Their power comes from the vision they carry and share. Above all, they are willing, as Time magazine says, to "walk the talk", to "live by the values they espouse."

This concept of leadership may be the new mode of leadership for the corporate world for the 21st Century, but many Christians recognize it as a First Century idea. It's the "management program" set forth by Jesus, but a methodology local churches have largely put on the shelf.

While corporations are ready to ride the coattails of the teaching of Jesus, the church has been using a Corporate model of leadership in the past century, and the helpfulness of this model is questionable.