A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

DEVELOP EXPERTISE OUTSIDE YOUR FIELD ■ 75
Flash Ahead Twenty-Five Years
Like much of Peter’s wisdom, it was not enough to just hear it. You had to
think about it more deeply and see where his ideas led to get their full benefit.
For me, Peter’s lesson on mastering more than one discipline didn’t
fully come together until many years later.
Dr. Owen Jacobs at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in Washington,
D.C., and others at various civilian institutions around the country,
had conceptualized the notion of “strategic leadership.” They had discovered
a thorny problem when previously successful lower level managers
were promoted into the higher rungs of management. An inordinate number
failed, despite their previous record of success. The numbers were too
high to be written off as simply “some make it and some do not.” This had
cost the nation dearly in terms of national treasure and increased waste and
losses for the companies and organizations.
In the past, those that could not make the transition to become what
was now termed by some “a strategic leader” were discarded, and those
that could make it were rewarded. The company bit the bullet for the cost
of the failed executive, and the individual generally lost his career, or got
shunted aside where it was perceived he would do no damage. However,
someone finally realized that this cost was in the millions of dollars to a
single organization, and probably in the billions for the nation as a whole.
According to Dr. Jacobs and his colleagues, the problem was that these
failed leaders had been unsuccessful as lower-level tactical leaders, but
could not make the transition to higher level strategic leaders. I was asked
to analyze this concept and develop a presentation which would help successful
tactical leaders to understand the problem and determine what
they needed to do to become successful top managers—before they were
promoted into these positions.
I agreed to undertake this task <strong>with</strong> some hesitation. The very words
“strategic leadership” sounded a little over simplistic, a mere coupling of
the buzzword “strategic” <strong>with</strong> the old standby, “leadership.” While I was
convinced that good leadership could be developed, I was less certain as
to whether good tactical leaders could be turned into good strategic ones
by a program.
Then, I remembered <strong>Drucker</strong>’s lesson of the corporate attorney promoted
to president, which he had discussed so many years earlier in the
classroom and the need for preparation to prepare for what was now being
called “strategic leadership.” Clearly, the concept of the strategic leader is