Peter Drucker on Managerial Courage
Class:
We began our class by discussing the differences between management and leadership, or rather differences between a manager and a leader.
Peter Drucker, in a "classic" (1963) HBR article writes about Managerial Courage. Working Knowledge, a publication of Harvard Business School has published an excerpt of the article that discusses three questions related to management and managers. 1. What is the manager's job? 2. What is the problem? 3. What is the principle?
Task, what do you think of the Questions and the Answers? Is Professor Drucker's thinking still current?
Gene A. Wright
posted by Gene A. Wright @ 12:08 PM
3 Comments:
I believe Peter Drucker's comments are still very relevant.
Courage seems to be the right word for these questions. Merriam- Webster Online defines courage as:
mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty
http://webster.com/dictionary/courage
Doing any of the listed standard responses to the questions are the easy way out. Not adapting and doing the same thing is much easier to do.
Additionally it is easy to get caught up in all the metrics without really understanding the problem. Efficiency at a non-problem doesn't help.
-bod
Some things test time, and Peter Drucker’s three points on Managerial Courage are still, in my opinion, still pretty accurate. Describing a manager’s job as “directing resources and efforts of the business toward opportunities for economically significant results” still applies. I would add a more modern element is that a manager’s role is also very centered on developing people.
Drucker’s point on “What is the major problem”, and his point of doing things efficiently that should not be done at all, remind me of some metrics and data I see collected for posting onto a board, without the data driving any activity. What’s the point besides something to look at for a tour?
The point on “what is the principle?” still applies to some degree, as the 80/20 or 90/10 rule still applies to so many things. I thing the international business sector now knows to diversify themselves so that they are not too dependent on any one sector or customer, as business conditions can change so quickly and you want to insulate yourself from crashing with the change.
I agree with Peter Drucker’s viewpoints and they are still valid today. To much of management time is spent on “problems”. Management courage is doing things right and not just trying to please the masses. A boss I had in the past used to tell me, “If you don’t have the ability to stand up and have the confidence to change it, you’ll never become an effective leader”. Another important note, “pick your battles wisely”.
-jjr
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