The Unbeatable Leader/Manager Combo

In today's NYT Business Section Steve Lohr wrote an article that lays out a seminal idea of great importance for leaders.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/business/07unboxed.html?_r=1&ref=business
The article apparently tells  us that after a time, companies that are apparently so different, come to resemble each other.  In this case, the ultimate-corporate-establishment company, IBM, and the iconoclastic consumer-oriented company, Apple, are compared.
Who cares.
The article is seminal and interesting for another reason: for the point that it makes about the fusion of managing and leading, at its very best.  In both cases, in both IBM and Apple, Lohr points out, bold, creative, dynamic leadership combines with outstanding management to produce great companies each in their own sphere, companies that endure, change and grow, and are at the pinnacle of corporate performance in their respective fields.
Apple's leadership is easier to see, i.e., Steve Jobs. This is a leader whose vision of electronically enabled everyday life (a "bicycle for the mind," he said at the time of Apple's founding, and hasn't wavered since) is backed up by absolutely top flight operations management.  Their inventory, for instance is kept at a seven day supply instead of the industry standard 30.
IBM's leadership is a little harder to see but it comes from the CEO "Palmisano and his team" setting and implementing "the deployment of scientific research and technology to tackle big challenges for business and society..."  Not a bad goal.
They have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on their "Smart Planet" advertising campaign, Lohr points out.  He quotes a consultant who says, "Sure, its marketing, but it's also a big idea..."  Big ideas are what leaders make possible.
Five IBM scientists have won nobel prizes and the company (remember the old Bell Labs?) win prices in computing, materials science and mathematics, Lohr states.
I think the point is not at all that two companies look like each other.  The point is that two exceptional organizations have bold leaders who take their organizations seriously, dedicate resources to its advancement (not just making money), and to spearheading worthy efforts that affect the world.  Maybe efforts of this scale take on a certain resemblance, but the point is so few organizations get to look this way.  Leading that offers a vision, I would contend, are also amenable to organizing because the followers all work for the sake of the whole, for the collaboration to succeed.
What these companies do in order to nurture great leading and translate that into dedicated, proficient managing/following needs to be in the news every day -- one story at a time, so that their ways, IBM's and Apple's become the standard we all can apply.