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On the Making of Great Business Leaders

Guest post by: Kerri Salls

Article Overview: When the management genius of the twentieth century, Peter Drucker, died at age 95, two very different articles about his contributions were published back to back. The first article was in Fortune magazine where he was often quoted over the years. The Fortune article pointed out 4 golden rules of management he espoused:

On the Making of Great Business Leaders

When the management genius of the twentieth century, Peter Drucker, died at age 95, two very different articles about his contributions were published back to back. The first article was in Fortune magazine where he was often quoted over the years. The Fortune article pointed out 4 golden rules of management he espoused:

1. Build on People’s Strengths – “it is a characteristic of an effective executive that he builds on the strengths of his colleagues. There is far too little strength around us to waste it.” Every leader knows how important it is to get the right people on the team, in the right position to build on the strengths they bring to the table. That way, their continued successes are the company’s successes too.



2. Know Your Market –“Effective executives make sure they go outside their own business to look, to listen, and to see for themselves.” You may truly have your finger on the pulse of the marketplace. But you won’t know it unless you go out and test those assumptions and listen to the marketplace for what they say they want.



3. Control Your Time – “Certainly there is no such thing as an ‘effective type. Yet it is also my observation that effective executives do have in common certain practices or habits. One is the conservation of time. Put first things first.” This rings familiar as I’m a strong believer in Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and one of those habits is Put First Things First. The key as both men have said is to use the time you do control to do the important things in order to accomplish the most with so little apparent effort.



4. Pull the Weeds – “The effective executive periodically asks, ‘If we were not already doing this, would we go into it now?’ We all know how to pull the plug on a project/product that failed. The harder decisions are when it’s time to let go of the successes of the past which have outlived their potential. “Most executives have learned that what one postpones one actually abandons.’ This in itself is an interesting observation as we plan for the new year.

The other article was in Boston Business Journal which confirmed Peter Drucker’s management vision that business is about people – customers and employees. In the article ‘The secret to business success’, Nan Langowitz and Aileen Gorman highlight some of the findings from the 2004 report of the Top Woman-Led Businesses of Massachusetts research study conducted by Babson College and The Commonwealth Institute. This study shows that women CEOs are putting people first. In fact the women CEOs are obsessed with customers and customer satisfaction. They follow that thread with a passion for their employees as well. These CEOs look at a distinctive set of operating variables as important to business success. After customer satisfaction - they rank employee satisfaction and corporate culture number one above all other factors.

Leadership is about people. The growth of these women-led enterprises validates the wisdom of their leadership style, building on the foundation laid by a master – Peter Drucker. What a tribute to the soundness of his expertise and benefiting so many people, customers and employees.

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Article Tags: business leaders, golden rules of management, leadership, leadership style



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