(FORTUNE Magazine) – Begin with the premise, not universally conceded as yet but where the zeitgeist seems headed, that no right-thinking business person would use the term ''boss'' anymore. Much too hierarchical, fellow citoyens of corporate America, as we mount the barricades of global competition. The word drags with it all sorts of nasty Neanderthal baggage: brutish images of people ordered around, chewed out, or labeled ''subordinates.'' But what to employ in its place? So far, ''manager'' seems the popular choice, including in this precinct. Truth to tell, though, the term doesn't exactly inspire, with its connotations of plodding along, handling or at least wrestling with the proverbial one damn thing after another. ''Leader'' had a big run-up in the Eighties, particularly when preceded by a highfalutin modifier like ''visionary'' or ''transformational.'' But then, how many people blessed with even the slightest charisma are actually out there? Also, leader implies followers -- and few red-blooded Americans want to be one of those. IN SEARCH OF the right word to sum up what a modern honcho should do and be, some progressive souls are now turning to ''coach.'' Indeed, William Bottom, a professor of organizational behavior at Washington University in St. Louis, reports recently overhearing a senior executive tell his colleagues, in what might be the caption for a New Yorker cartoon, ''We need to function more as coaches and less as dictators.'' The locution appeals in part for its very fuzziness. What exactly is a coach? Pressed for a definition, most businessmen would doubtless resort to the world of sports, but there the answer depends largely on the sport you pick or the level of the game: A football coach and a tennis coach do markedly different things. You should hope that the person coaching your daughter in Little League bears scant resemblance to the late Billy Martin. Ah, the sentimentality that attaches to our misty notions of this character, endowing him with a golden, almost godlike aura. (Bonus question: Why is it that sports are the only arena where many an American male feels free to get in touch with his feelings, as the phrase goes, or express them?) Good ol' coach -- inspirational speaker at a thousand banquets, hero to entire states or cities (provided he wins), paragon of weight-loss commercials. ''People have more respect for a coach than they do for any other authority figure,'' maintains Andrew J. DuBrin, a management professor at Rochester Institute of Technology. ''Perhaps it's because athletics are so deified in our culture.'' FOR ALL THE FUN one might poke at the idea, there are ways a boss resembles a coach, or ought to. Calls for Himself or Herself to put on the mantle, or sweatshirt, reflect the fact that the manager's job is changing, and with it the requisite skills. He'll need to be better with teams (they're popping up everywhere), less hands-on and more willing to let somebody else carry the ball. Indeed, a true believer in the dawning of a participative-management millennium would argue that coach is just a way station on the long march upward from boss as dictator. Eventual destination: the boss as facilitator or -- are you ready for this? -- unleader, to use one prophet's term.

Before attempting those dizzying heights, consider certain areas where the quotidian modern manager might well learn a thing or two from a good coach: -- Picking the team. On the practice field, his nibs carefully studies each player, ferreting out strengths and weaknesses, gauging potential. Besides figuring out what each needs to work on, he's thinking about where each fits * best for maximum collective effort. How many managers pay as much attention to their subordinates? This neglect may be changing. Robert Silzer, head of the New York City office of the Personnel Decisions consulting firm and a proponent of the boss-as-coach, sees ''a lot more front-end assessment'' of people nowadays before they're put in jobs, with an eye toward individually tailoring the kind of management-development ministrations they will receive. -- Teaching. This is the core of what most people are getting at when they talk about the boss as coach. A teacher doesn't do the algebra himself; he helps you learn to do it, gently corrects your mistakes, urges you on, and beams when you finally display mastery of the subject. Bernard Bass, a professor at the State University of New York at Binghamton and a heavyweight expert on leadership, points out that true leaders have always done something like this in developing subordinates: ''They make themselves available to discuss particular problems, talk about career plans, review the resources the subordinate needs, critique meetings that both have been to, and go over problems the subordinate may have with his subordinate.'' The key skill here, which great teachers have and most managers lack, is the ability to communicate to someone that he has made a mistake, or not performed up to snuff, without destroying his motivation. Paradoxically, in business, between adults, this may entail discovering and admitting that you were wrong yourself. ''It's an interactive process,'' observes Silzer, one that requires the boss to engage in a very unbosslike activity -- listening. ''While the two of you are talking, you have to be able to read the person's expression, collect new data, realize that he may have a very different take on the situation, and if it's warranted, be willing to change yours.'' Adds the consultant: ''This takes self-confidence.''

-- Motivating. Not just win-one-for-the-Gipper speeches, though if you've got a couple of those in your gym bag, don't discard them. What coaches seem to know, but often don't say, is that the best motivation consists of getting a player to understand that his self-interest and the team's are inextricably bound up. Son, the team, the school, need your absolutely maximum peak personal performance. Oh -- this part perhaps slightly sotto voce -- and of course you will need the team behind you to achieve that performance.

This isn't an easy idea to put across in a business organization. At the ) very least you have to back it up with other evidence that the company truly does care about the individual's development -- providing him training, giving him opportunities to shine and full credit when he does excel. But for sheer motivational power, it sure beats ''Well, that's what we pay you for.'' LET US NOT, however, push the idea of the boss as a coach too far; it has distinct limitations. Many of the experts wonder if this revered figure from sports has the same resonance for women managers as he does for men. (Quick, name one woman coach.) At least since Vince Lombardi, the coach's primary job has been defined as winning. While athletic contests may be zero-sum games, business dealings often aren't, as practitioners increasingly realize. How many coaches have game plans for achieving win-win solutions? David L. Maloney has been both a manager and a coach: He currently serves as vice president for development at Carnegie Mellon and before that coached the university's basketball team for eight years. What he misses most about coaching, he says, and doesn't find in managing, are the close bonds he developed with his players. While many managers and subordinates would profit from learning more about one another, particularly their respective hopes and dreams, do they really want to get that close? Maybe we're not really looking for a coach, but for a . . . what? The term gaining popularity among academic experts on participative management is ''facilitator,'' though no one expects it to be easy to rally erstwhile bosses under that banner. (''Well, little Johnny, what do you want to be when you grow up?'' ''Gosh, Mr. Smith, I hope that if I study hard and get a few breaks, someday I might make it to facilitator.'') This avatar of 21st-century management thinks of his or her main job as helping the efforts of others come to fruition. BUT EVEN THIS advanced formulation doesn't go far enough to satisfy Neal Thornberry, a professor at Babson College and an expert on so-called self- directed work teams. Not one to call a spade a garden implement, he prefers the term ''unleader'' as better summarizing what the successors to today's managers will and won't do. Among the won'ts, according to Thornberry: making decisions, allocating resources, hiring and firing. ''The team will do a lot of this,'' he contends. The unleader will take team development as his primary charge. He'll be an expert in adult learning, of course, understanding that different team members learn in different ways. But he will also know the ins, outs, ups, downs, and general convolutions of group dynamics -- how teams form, reach agreement or fail to, act in concert or fall apart. So armed, he'll be equipped to help the team along, mostly by asking questions: ''Have you considered the legal aspects of this?'' ''Okay, why do you think you're all so mad at Helen? . . . Well, what are you going to do about her, then?'' If he does his job right, he'll end up serving not as a facilitator -- Thornberry doesn't like that word -- but as (can you dig it?) a catalyst. The professor allows that such a role won't go very far toward satisfying the needs for power and control that drive many a manager today. And he admits that the natural next step up for such a person isn't clear, if there's any hierarchy left at all by the time unleaders become common. But Thornberry does see one compensating benefit for the new breed: To get people to take this tough, self-effacing job, Thornberry figures, you'll have to pay them more than bosses get now. Hmmm. Sounds like an idea that will take some heavy facilitation.