Fast Company** magazine is heralding "The New Age of Leadership" in its article on the appointment of Drew Faust as the first-ever female President of Harvard University. This might be unremarkable, except that in the mid-1970's, women were barred from entering the main door of the Harvard faculty club. Ms. Faust's appointment appears to be in response to a desire for 'more femininine characteristics in managment' (Richard Chait, Harvard).

There's no doubt about it. The traditional, or 'masculine,' models of leadership are not working; witness Enron, Conrad Black and, of course, President Bush...the quintessential example that old-style, competitive, win-at-all-costs leadership costs way too much.

The truth is that feminine leadership has nothing to do with gender, and it is not new.

For example, Martin Luther King, Jr., in the 1960's captured an important element of feminine leadership when he said,' ... if we say that power is the ability to effect change, or the ability to achieve purpose, then it is not powerful to engage in an act that does not do that - no matter how loud you are and no matter how much you burn' (or earn).

I invite you to travel back 164 years ... to 1843, the year that Charles Dickens' masterpiece about Ebenezer Scrooge was published. In case you don't know about Ebenezer, he was visited by ghostly apparitions on Christmas Eve. In modern vernacular, we would say that these apparitions raised his self-awareness, he had some defining moments, and as a result, he changed his leadership style. In less formal terms, the ghosts scared the beejeepers out of him, held up a mirror for him to look at himself, and created an opportunity for him to change or die. As Ebenezer transformed, so did his business. He went from being a mean, miserly and miserable boss to a kind, generous and giving one. I suspect that his metamorphosis did not harm the bottom-line but, in fact, enhanced it. One can only hope that Drew Gilpin Faust's tenure as Harvard's president will have a similar impact on the traditional Harvard environment.

Whether male or female, it behooves us, like Ebenezer Scrooge, to unleash ourselves from the tyranny of a shopping list of' 'can't, have to and should' (within the confines of legal and ethical considerations, of course).

Scrooge got a metaphorical whack on the side of his psyche which lead him to some important choices on that Christmas Eve. He threw off an old belief system and embraced a new vision of who he wanted to be, both as a person and a manager.

As we enter a new year, I invite you to consider this question:

What will it take for you to unleash yourself from the chains that keep you from being ALL that you know ... in the core of your very being ... that you can be?

**Check out the Fast Company article here.