Peter Drucker's Way to the Top

by William Cohen

  Drucker focused on success in a very different way. He noted that many in the North American business culture experience confusion and sometimes even disgust with the very concept of success. He suggested replacing the word ‘success’ with a completely different word: ‘contribution’ when discussing one’s own vocation or fulfilment of responsibility. He pointed out that contribution leads to prosperity.1 Although use of the word ‘contribution’ may sound a bit strange when used in this context, it is appropriate to many fields of human endeavour. This confirms what we noted earlier. Success on the battlefield requires major effort and sacrifice. It presents a major challenge.

  BATTLEFIELD LEADERSHIP PRESENTS THE GREATEST CHALLENGE

  “Give me liberty, or give me death!” exclaimed Patrick Henry, who served as the fourth and sixth post-colonial governor of Virginia in a speech before the Virginia Convention on 23 March 1775 at St John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia. His speech convinced the Virginians to commit the troops which helped the colonists win independence during the Revolutionary War. This underscores the important outcome of many battlefield successes or failures: “liberty or death”.

  Leadership in a battle probably represents the greatest challenge for any leader. In combat, conditions are frequently severe. Even weather can play an important role and may cause the cancellation of planned operations, and it may create particular problems such as when air or other support had been planned. There are of course, other terrible hazards besides weather. There is greater uncertainty than in other type of human activity. Moreover, the competition is not just trying to beat you or those you lead, but by necessity may seek to take your life to accomplish their own goals.

  As Drucker pointed out to me once, “In no other type of leadership must the leader make decisions based on less or less reliable information.” Workers of the type we refer to as soldiers may need to perform their duties with little food and irregular sleep. They must all take great risks. No wonder most followers and leaders alike would prefer to be somewhere else and doing something else.

  While there are true military geniuses in battle, the clear majority, in most organizations, are ordinary men and women. In many battles, not all may be professionals. One side or the other may not even be trained properly or thoroughly, while not all are suited to their jobs or assignments. Professional or amateur, all are stressed far more than in any other situation or occupation. Moreover, leaders must not only carry out the mission, but do their best to protect the lives of those they lead at the same time. So, battle probably represents a worst-case condition. No wonder even traditional motivators such as high pay, good benefits, and job security may not be as effective as in other human endeavours. Moreover, there is no ‘business as usual’ on the battlefield. While there may be a normal routine, every day presents new and different challenges.

  In battle leadership, leaders help their followers to reach very difficult goals and complete very arduous tasks despite everything. Leadership in battle can be the worst conditions any leader may encounter, and for this reason instead of managing workers in a battle it is important to lead them. In leading under terrible conditions, good battle leaders build and lead organizations which get things done ethically, honestly, and for the most part under the circumstances, humanely.

  UNDERLYING LESSONS THAT ARE STILL THE BASIS OF ALL LEADERSHIP SUCCESS

  I wondered whether there were underlying principles or lessons from this type of ‘worst condition leadership’ which were at the root of all leadership success. Thus, the motivation for my study.

  To do this study, I sought subjects who had not only led in battle, but also had gone on to demonstrate successful civilian careers in leading non-military activities as well. The foundation of my research was a survey sent to more than 200 former combat leaders and conversations with hundreds more. All had become successful in the corporate world or in other non-military organizations after leaving the armed forces. Among the responses I received in the initial phase, 62 were from generals and admirals. I asked these former combat leaders what they had learned from leadership in battle. I asked about the tactics they used, about the importance of their style and the most important actions a leader must take. I asked about adapting these lessons in their civilian careers.

  I found that while there were successful leaders practising assorted styles of leadership, there were universal principles or concepts that successful leaders followed to dramatically boost productivity and achieve extraordinary success in all types of organizations. The Emperor Napoleon, one of history’s pre-eminent military leaders, developed and published 115 maxims on the conduct of war. How many hundreds of leadership principles would I uncover after analysing and tabulating the input from so many respondents?

  Surprisingly, I discovered that approximately 95% of the responses I received boiled down to only eight principles. However, each of these leaders had seen one or more of these eight principles help them to achieve extraordinary results in their careers. More than a few wrote special notes or letters to express their support for my project. It was as if they had seen extreme physical payment for what they had learned. They knew its value, and they didn’t want to see it wasted.

  In a latter phase of my research, I interviewed other successful senior business leaders and reviewed dozens of corporate situations and the actions taken by these corporations’ senior leaders. Some also had combat experience in the armed forces. Most did not. Some allowed me to use their real names and companies. Some preferred to remain anonymous. Some had developed their own lists of principles of leadership over the years. While their lists differed from each other, they invariably included some version of the eight responses I had developed from my surveys. I also looked at 7,000 years of recorded history to confirm or to disprove these concepts in different settings.

  I decided that these were far more than principles, they were Universal Laws of Leadership. There are hundreds of excellent techniques and rules that people may follow as guidance in leading others. But these eight are essential. I believe they are the very essence of all leadership. These eight laws are simple, but even one of these laws can make an important impact in any project on the results achieved. This is because you can make a lot of mistakes and still succeed as a leader. But if you violate one of these universal laws, it will have a measurable negative impact, even if you are ultimately successful. Of course, no one can guarantee success, because there are other factors which might override anything a leader may be able to do. But, there is no question that if you follow the universal laws, your chances of success increase greatly. I believe that these laws are powerful and that the consequences of following them or not can be the determining factor for success for most leaders in most situations. These are the eight laws that I uncovered:

  1. Maintain Absolute Integrity

  2. Know Your Stuff

  3. Declare Your Expectations

  4. Show Uncommon Commitment

  5. Expect Positive Results

  6. Take Care of Your People

  7. Put Duty Before Self

  8. Get Out in Front.

  This work resulted in several books which discussed or incorporated the eight universal laws. As I became president of an accredited nonprofit graduate school, I took note of these laws up close and saw that most who practised them were not only successful leaders, but that they were also highly successful in their careers. General Ronald Fogleman became Chief of Staff of the Air Force and was gracious enough to write the foreword to my first book explaining the eight universal laws. Many successful leaders wrote testimonials including General H. Norman Schwarzkopf who had recently led and been successful in the Gulf War and retired General and later Secretary of State Alexander Haig Jr, as well as astronaut Colonel Frank Borman and former marine Robert Lutz who was then vice chairman of the Chrysler Corporation and Bill Bartmann, who made and lost several fortunes and authored the book, Bouncing Back, and who was once listed as the 25th wealthiest man in Americ
a, right ahead of Ross Perot, in a survey published in Forbes magazine. Years later, I asked both General Fogleman and Bill to join the board of trustees of the graduate school that I co-founded.

  I had a lengthy discussion about each law with Peter Drucker, these discussions were published first in my book Drucker on Leadership.2 We had gone to what was Drucker’s favourite Italian restaurant in Claremont near where he taught, and over a spaghetti lunch I discussed my research in some detail. Here is each law followed by Drucker’s response to my inclusion on the list:

  1. MAINTAIN ABSOLUTE INTEGRITY

  “You are entirely right and absolutely correct in listing this as your first law. A leader can be well-liked and popular and even competent and that’s all well and good, but if he lacks integrity of character he is not fit to be a leader.”

  Drucker had written in one of his books: “Character is not something you can fool people about. The people with whom a person works, and especially subordinates, know in a few weeks whether he/ she has integrity or not. They may forgive a person for a great deal: incompetence, ignorance, insecurity or bad manners, but they will not forgive a lack of integrity.”3

  2. KNOW YOUR STUFF

  “This seems obvious, but some managers do try to cut corners rather than mastering the knowledge that they must have and that is essential to the quality of their performance.”

  Drucker wrote: “leadership rests on being able to do something others cannot do at all or find difficult to do.”4

  3. DECLARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS

  “I’m uncertain what you mean by this. If you mean that a leader should declare his objectives, his mission – by all means.”

  4. SHOW UNCOMMON COMMITMENT

  “The failure of many is because they show no commitment, or commitment to the wrong goals. This gets back to your third law. Commitment comes from a worthy mission and then strong commitment.”

  Drucker wrote (referring to what non-profits could teach business): “non-profit directors tend to have a personal commitment to the organization’s cause. Few people sit on a church vestry or a school board unless they deeply care about the religion or education.”5

  5. EXPECT POSITIVE RESULTS

  “There is a cautionary tale. One must not be a ‘Pollyanna’. Still the central thought is correct. One cannot be negative and succeed in anything.”

  Drucker wrote: “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.”6

  6. TAKE CARE OF YOUR PEOPLE

  “Many managers are failing to do this, and it will catch up with them.”

  Drucker wrote: “A leader has responsibility to his subordinates, to his associates.”7

  7. DUTY BEFORE SELF

  This point requires some further explanation. What I meant by this is that the leader had a duty to accomplish the mission and a duty to take care of those for whom he or she was responsible. The leader’s own needs must come only after fulfilling these duties.

  “This should be the basis of all leadership. The leader cannot act in one’s own interests. It must be in the interests of the customer and the worker. This is the great weakness of American management today.”

  Drucker wrote: “Douglas MacArthur … built a team second to none because he put the task first … He was also unbelievably vain, with a tremendous contempt for humanity, because he was certain that no one came close to him in intelligence. Nevertheless, he forced himself in every single staff conference to start the presentation with the most junior officer. He did not allow anybody to interrupt.”8

  8. GET OUT IN FRONT

  “Very true whether junior leader or the CEO the leader must be where the work is the most challenging. During World War I, the deaths among higher ranking officers was rare compared with those they caused by their incompetence. Too few generals were killed.”

  Drucker wrote: “the human being himself determines what he contributes.”9

  Peter was enthusiastic about the eight Universal Laws of Leadership, and for more than 25 years I have taught the laws to individuals and corporations all over the world.

  THE ESSENCE OF SUCCESS

  However, one day I was looking at what Bill Bartmann had written in endorsing my first book on this subject. Bartmann’s endorsement was as follows: “You have discovered the essence of success. It will be mandatory reading for all of our managers because it will not only help them to become better leaders, but also enjoy a more successful life.” I realized that Bill was right. The real authors of the eight Universal Laws of Leadership, those who I had surveyed and interviewed, had used them to become successful as leaders, but they were more than laws of success in leadership: they were as Bill had said, the essence of success in anything.

  I recalled an incident that had occurred when promoting the book. I had arrived early at a radio station. In those days, I had the laws printed on business cards and I had handed one of these to the host of the radio show. He looked them over while we awaited the start of his show. Suddenly he exclaimed in amazement: “These laws are exactly what I have been looking for! I have had problems with my oldest son. These laws tell me exactly what I can do to overcome my problems with him.” I encouraged him and told him that as a parent he was a leader, and that the laws would help him with leading his son towards better behaviour. All this was true, but what I didn’t realize at the time is that the eight Universal Laws of Leadership were actually the eight universal laws of success in any endeavour. I realized that Bill Bartmann, the 25th wealthiest man in America at the time had been using them and recognized them for what they were, while Drucker and I were focusing on leadership. Drucker, too, had been using them unconsciously to attain his own success, and I found supporting evidence of this in his writings outside of the discipline of leadership. Of course, I had been using them as well.

  1. Lee, Joshua Henry. “The Future of Economic Man: How Management Can Maximize Institutional Potential, Increase Human Prosperity and Create a Functioning Society”. A manuscript awarded a top-15 place by the Drucker Forum, in the Global Drucker Challenge, Managers/Entrepreneurs Category, 2017. https://bit.ly/2mCyI7l.

  2. Cohen, William A. Drucker on Leadership: New Lessons from the Father of Modern Management (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009).

  3. Drucker, Peter F. Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 462.

  4. Drucker, Peter F. On the Profession of Management (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Books, 1998), 92.

  5. Drucker, Peter F. Managing for the Future (New York: Truman Talley Books, Dutton, 1992), 209.

  6. Drucker, Peter F., quoted in Barry Popik, “Entry from 8 May 2016”. The Big Apple. https://bit.ly/2voW9SU.

  7. Drucker, Peter F. Managing the Nonprofit Organization: Practices and Principles (New York: Harper Collins, 1990), 27.

  8. Ibid., 23.

  9. Drucker, Peter F. The Practice of Management (New York: Collins, 1986), 13.

  CHAPTER 5

  DRUCKER’S VIEWS ON INTEGRITY, ETHICS, HONOUR, AND DOING THE RIGHT THING

  Integrity may be difficult to define, but what constitutes lack of integrity is of such seriousness as to disqualify a person for a managerial position.

  – Peter F. Drucker

  I didn’t become good friends with Doris Drucker, Peter’s widow, until several years after his death. I knew who she was of course, and I had met her formerly, but we didn’t know each other well or socially. What had happened is that my first book on Drucker, A Class with Drucker1 had been scheduled for publication in November of 2007. The first global symposium of Drucker Societies was held the same year at the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management where Drucker had taught. Ira Jackson, then Dean of the Drucker School, who had written the foreword for my book had asked me to speak about the book and Drucker. Of course, I was honoured to accept his invitation. Normally at the Drucker School I was introduced as “Doctor Cohen” since I had been the first PhD graduate of the then new progr
amme for practising managers which Drucker and Dean Paul Albrecht had developed. However, on this occasion Dean Jackson introduced me as “General Cohen”, a title I normally use only when I am with the military. Doris was in the audience.

  During the lunch break Doris sought me out. She said, “Bill, we have known each other for years, but until Ira introduced you as a general, I really didn’t know who you were. Peter spoke about you all the time. You were his favourite student.” Without even thinking about it I put my hand over my heart. Her words were a great and unexpected honour, and this led to a friendship which lasted until she passed away some years later at the age of 103. In the intervening years, we attended many meetings at Claremont where she was called upon to say a few words about her husband. I don’t remember her ever speaking about his genius, his many accomplishments, or their personal life together although she may have done so. It was not what she emphasized primarily in her speaking about him. What I do remember is her speaking of his ethics and core values, and about his integrity. Integrity, ethics, and honour were all extremely important to him and these, not his genius or accomplishments, were what she said she most admired in him. Drucker was not fanatical about these issues, but he was certain and his students knew where he stood and what he believed.