A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

186 ■ A CLASS WITH DRUCKER
<strong>Drucker</strong> on Leadership
I began this chapter <strong>with</strong> <strong>Drucker</strong>’s response as to why he did not write a
book on leadership. However, leadership can be found on almost every
page of <strong>Drucker</strong>’s writings, and long after I left his classroom, <strong>Drucker</strong> did
write about the leader of the future. He believed strongly in what leadership
could accomplish in any organization, but he also believed that the
purpose of leadership was for the benefit of the organization and of society,
and not for the benefit of the leader.
Some writers have suggested that the reason that <strong>Drucker</strong> largely abandoned
his emphasis on corporate management in the latter years of his life
to focus on the world of nonprofits and nonprofit management is that he
had lost faith in corporate management. I cannot confirm this assessment,
but I do know that he was vastly disappointed in the prevalent attitude
among many managers, even well known and well-regarded successful
managers, that they practiced leadership first and foremost for their own
benefit. He was appalled at the huge salaries taken by senior management
of many organizations, not a few while their organizations stumbled and
their workers were laid off.
<strong>Drucker</strong> was dumbfounded by the lifestyles promoted by many executives
and the concept of the “trophy wife,” as if all of this was a reward
to themselves for their success in having fought their way to the top.
Despite his immense success, Peter himself lived in a modest house on a
middle-class street <strong>with</strong> Doris, his wife of more than sixty years. She has
written that he never failed on wakening to greet her <strong>with</strong> “Good morning,
my dearest darling.” It was almost as if Peter was trying to set the
example for managers worldwide that to be a leader was a calling and
that one should live modestly, morally, and for the benefit of others.
In the late 1990’s I did extensive research on battle leaders of all ranks
and services who had gone on to extraordinary success leading other
organizations once they had left the military. I wondered if they had
learned principles during their military careers which had helped them to
success as civilians. Surprisingly, most of their responses could be boiled
down to only eight categories. I called these “The Eight Universal Laws of
Leadership.” The idea was that leaders in all types of organizations could
use this information to help them.
In the fall of 1997, I shared this information <strong>with</strong> Peter. He was very
enthusiastic about the idea and encouraged me in my desire to publish
my research in an applied book for managers. The resulting book was