Hands On--Hands Off? A Leadership Dilemma.(labor relations)

The line between management control and employee empowerment is ever changing.

Many years ago, before I limited my work to the home building industry, I worked on a project for a hospital in the near-suburbs of a big Midwestern city. An older hospital, it was in the midst of a major transition, having just completed extensive remodeling to bring it up to speed with competing facilities.

Hospitals are characteristically very political organizations, with strictly defined positions and an extensive hierarchy. Often, there are continual wars--admitting vs. surg