Leadership Lessons from Peter Drucker
Posted by Celia Couture on Tue, Nov 03, 2009 @ 09:30 AM
This week's Harvard Business Review played tribute to Peter Drucker, the role model for our current guidelines for leadership greatness. Current Harvard Business School Professor, Rosabeth Moss Kanter was asked in an interview for the article, What she thought Drucker would make of the recent economic troubles, "His first comment might be 'I told you so,'" she writes in "What Would Peter Drucker say?" In the article Kanter points out that as early at the 1980's Drucker warned that companies would pay a price for allowing executive pay to get out of control and creating compensation systems that encouraged manager to take excessive risks and focus too much on the short term.
Drucker was a man of vision whose predictions about the auto industry collapse, competition from global markets challenging U.S. dominance would ultimately impact and blur our ability to recover quickly. After all these years, running a successful business continues to rely upon the ability of the organization to have a strong purpose.
Business models have drifted away from this very sage advice. We tend today to want to find someone to "blame" for our challenges. Drucker's work was dedicated toward looking at the entire enterprise--trends, organizational design, norms, processes and routines. He also reminded us that it is the responsibility of CEO's to challenge! The article also talked about the importance of both long and short term goals as they relate to the organization's mission and vision.
During crisis situations we can take our eye off the ball, but that leads to confusion, discord and anxiety. Executives constantly have to ask themselves if they are making the right decisions. As an executive, you need to utilize the talents of the management team around you. If you can't make mid-course corrections you really run the risk of failure.