For the
next little while, let us turn to the subject of leadership. Lately I
have been reviewing a lot of leadership material. And, for my money,
Peter Drucker is still as good as it gets.
A couple
weeks ago I posted an article Drucker had written back in 1993. If
you did not read the article, click here. In 1995, The Drucker Foundation
published a book titled The Leader of the Future. What follows
is the foreword to that book:
I have
been working with organizations of all kinds for fifty years or
more––as a teacher and administrator in the university, as a
consultant to corporations, as a board member, as a volunteer. Over
the years, I have discussed with scores––perhaps even
hundreds––of leaders their roles, their goals, and their
performance. I have worked with manufacturing giants and tiny firms,
with organizations that span the world and others that work with
severely handicapped children in one small town. I have worked with
some exceedingly bright executives and a few dummies, people who talk
a good deal about leadership and others who apparently never even
think of themselves as leaders and who rarely, if ever, talk about
leadership.
The
lessons are unambiguous. The first is that there may be “born
leaders,” but there surely are too few to depend on them.
Leadership must be learned and can be learned––and this, of
course, is what this book was written for and should be used for. But
the second major lesson is that “leadership personality,”
“leadership style,” and “leadership traits” do not exist.
Among the most effective leaders I have encountered and worked with
in half a century, some locked themselves into their office and
others were ultragregarious. Some (though not many) were “nice
guys” and others were stern disciplinarians. Some were quick and
impulsive; others studied and studied again and then took forever to
come to a decision. Some were warm and instantly “simpatico”;
others remained aloof even after years of working closely with
others, not only with outsiders like me but with the people within
their own organization. Some immediately spoke of their family;
others never mentioned anything apart from the task at hand.
Some
leaders were excruciatingly vain––and it did not affect their
performance (as his spectacular vanity did not affect General Douglas
MacArthur's performance until the very end of his career). Some were
self-effacing to a fault––and again it did not affect their
performance as leaders (as it did not affect the performance of
General George Marshall or Harry Truman). Some were as austere in
their private lives as a hermit in the desert; others were
ostentatious and pleasure-loving and whooped it up at every
opportunity. Some were good listeners, but among the most effective
leaders I have worked with were also a few loners who listened only
to their own inner voice. The one and only personality trait
the effective ones I have encountered did have in common was
something they did not have: they had little or no “charisma”
and little use for the term or what it signifies.
All the
effective leaders I have encountered––both those I worked with
and those I merely watched––knew four simple things:
1. The
only definition of a leader is someone who has followers.
Some people are thinkers. Some are prophets. Both roles are important
and badly needed. But without followers, there can be no leaders.
2. An
effective leader is not someone who is loved or admired. He or she is
someone whose followers do the right things. Popularity is not
leadership. Results are.
3.
Leaders are highly visible. They therefore set examples.
4.
Leadership is not rank, privilege, titles, or money. It is
responsibility.
Regardless
of their almost limitless diversity with respect to personality,
style, abilities, and interests, the effective leaders I have met,
worked with, and observed also behaved much the same way:
1. They
did not start with the question, “What do I want?” They started
out asking, “What needs to be done?”
2. Then
they asked, “What can and should I do to make a difference?”
This has to be something that both needs to be done and fits the
leader's strengths and the way she or he is most effective.
3. They
constantly asked, “What are the organization's mission and
goals? What constitutes performance and results
in this organization?”
4. They
were extremely tolerant of diversity in people and did not look for
carbon copies of themselves. It rarely even occurred to them to ask,
“Do I like or dislike this person?” But they were
totally––fiendishly––intolerant when it came to a person's
performance, standards, and values.
5. They
were not afraid of strength in their associates. They gloried in it.
Whether they had heard of it or not, their motto was what Andrew
Carnegie wanted to have put on his tombstone: “Here lies a man who
attracted better people into his service than he was himself.”
6. One
way or another, they submitted themselves to the “mirror
test”––that is, they made sure that the person they saw in
the mirror in the morning was the kind of person they wanted to be,
respect, and believe in. This way they fortified themselves against
the leader's greatest temptation––to do things that are popular
rather than right and to do petty, mean, sleazy things.
Finally,
these effective leaders were not preachers; they were doers. In the
mid 1920s, when I was in my final high school years, a whole spate of
books on World War I and its campaigns suddenly appeared in English,
French, and German. For our term project, our excellent history
teacher––himself a badly wounded war veteran––told each of us
to pick several of these books, read them carefully, and write a
major essay on our selections. When we then discussed these essays in
class, one of my fellow students said, “Every one of these books
says that the Great War was a war of total military incompetence. Why
was it?” Our teacher did not hesitate a second but shot right
back, “Because not enough general were killed; they stayed way
behind the lines and let others do the fighting and dying.”
Effective
leaders delegate a good many things; they have to or they drown in
trivia. But they do not delegate the one thing that only they can do
with excellence, the one thing that will make a difference, they one
thing that will set standards, the one thing they want to be
remembered for. They do it.
It does
matter what kind of organization you work in; you will find
opportunities to learn about leadership from all
organizations––public, private, and nonprofit. Many people do not
realize it, but the largest number of leadership jobs in the United
States is in the nonprofit, service sector. Nearly one million
nonprofit organizations are active in this country today, and they
provide excellent opportunities for learning about leadership. The
nonprofit sector is and has been the true growth sector in America's
society and economy. It will become increasingly important during the
coming years as more and more of the tasks that government was
expected to do during the last thirty or forty years will have to be
taken over by community organizations, that is, nonprofit
organizations.
The
Leader of the Future is a book for leaders in all sectors: business,
nonprofit, and government. It is written by people who themselves are
leaders with proven performance records. It can––and should––be
read as the definitive text on the subject. It informs and
stimulates.
The
first section of this book looks at the future of organizations and
examines the role of leaders in the emerging society of
organizations. The second part of the book gives vivid accounts of
today's and tomorrow's leaders in action. It then turns to look at
leadership development strategies, and it concludes with some
powerful personal statements from effective leaders.
This is
a book about the future. But I hope that it will also be read as a
call to action. I hope that it will first challenge every reader to
ask, “What in my organization could I do that would truly make a
difference? How can I truly set an example?” And I hope that it
will then motivate each reader to do it.
