Francesco Cali wore the label quietly: old school. The reputed boss of the Gambino crime family was nothing like John J. Gotti, the flashy “Dapper Don” who ruled the same operation when Mr. Cali was a young man.

He kept a low profile not just in his business dealings but in his Staten Island neighborhood. Yet he met the same bloody fate as many of his predecessors on Wednesday night, gunned down in the street outside his brick home in a brazen killing that recalled the mob wars of decades past.

Mr. Cali, 53, represented a shift in Gambino leadership in recent years, a boss who sought to avoid the limelight in favor of discreet meetings — face to face, no telephones — while at the same time reaching across the Atlantic and tapping Sicilian networks for foot soldiers and drugs, law enforcement officials said.

In short, he was “an earner,” one who brought to his leadership his relative youth and a reputation for spreading the wealth among the Gambino family while deftly avoiding the traps and wiretaps of law enforcement.