Peter Drucker on Leadership

What are Peter Drucker’s lessons for leaders?

What did Peter Drucker, the Father of Modern Management, have to say about leadership? Because Drucker believed that management was itself an important and noble endeavor, he did not, throughout most of his career, focus much on leadership. Having fled Nazi Germany soon after Hitler’s rise to power, Peter Drucker’s view of leaders, particularly charismatic leaders, was not particularly positive. For Drucker, effective management, not leadership, was the key to success.

Yet, by the end of his life, Drucker acknowledged that leadership was important. I recall that many years ago when Peter came to one of our undergraduate leadership courses, the students asked him his definition of leadership. He said that he did not want to talk about leadership, but about management. A bold student asked, “Can you define management?” Some of the students smiled as Drucker defined “management” and it was quite similar to the agreed-upon definition of “leadership” that the students had come up with in the prior week’s class.

In his book, Drucker on Leadership, my friend, Bill Cohen, a student and colleague of Peter Drucker, extracts the leadership lessons that he learned from this great thought leader. Here are two of the lessons that Bill uncovered:

1. Strategic planning is the first priority of the leader. Drucker believed that the leader’s job was to create the desired future for the company or the organization. The leader needed to be intimately involved with the strategic direction.

2. Ethics and integrity are critical for leader effectiveness. Character and ethical behavior are of central importance for the leader. According to Drucker, followers might forgive leaders for mistakes, but will not forgive a lack of integrity.

For Development: Think about and reflect on these two factors. There are more to follow.