The Stuff of Heroes Newsletter Vol 6, No.1 for executives, managers, leaders, and entrepreneurs on leadership, strategy, business, marketing, management, and entrepreneurship.

The Table of Contents for this Month's Edition of the Journal of Leadership Application

The Lost Lessons of Peter Drucker. Many of you heard my web cast sponsored by the American Management Association on "The Lost Lessons of Peter Drucker" on November 7th. This hour-long web cast contains PowerPoints, my explanation of each and the recording from a live Q and A which followed. It has now been archived by the American Management Association --- best of all, it's free. The link is at http://www.amanet.org/editorial/webcast/2007/peter-drucker.htm . Your registering also allows you to view all of the American Management Association's archived recordings. This is a real benefit for management learning in a variety of fields, and as I said its all free --- highly recommended!

Corporations are not alone in knowing that leadership is critical. Although much of my work is with businesses, it is very satisfying to know that all organizations understand the importance of leadership. For example, leadership seminars and workshops for law enforcement. Although I've done these in the past, including for the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia, there is increased interest and I will be doing several within the coming months. Law enforcement has always recognized the importance of leadership in their operations, and it is always a privilege to work with them.

Conducting workshops or speaking for universities is another area in which there has been increased interest in recent months. I had the privilege of speaking at the Inaugural Global Symposium of Drucker Societies in June, of being Keynote Speaker at the Leadership Institute at California State University Los Angeles on November 3rd and speaking at Claremont Graduate University on Drucker Day on November 10th. Recently I was invited to Rosario University of Bogota, Colombia to lecture. I'll be there April 10th in 2008.

The military. As a retired general, like famous USC leadership professor Warren Bennis, I can say that my early leadership education began in the military. I have spoken or conducted workshops for all four of our U.S. military services, and several friendly foreign military allies as well. On February 12th and 13th I'll be speaking at two sessions of the Annual Mid-Winter Reserve Officers Association Conference and Exposition in Washington, D.C. and autographing books afterwards. Almost 1500 Reserve Officers from all services attend this conference. Links to it are at http://www.roa.org/site/Calendar?view=Detail&id=100601 .

My point about this is that all organizations including business and non profit need and deserve good leadership. You don't need to hire me to help you attain it. But you should do everything in your power to insure that those in your organization recognize its importance. Moreover, you should educate yourself through books, and classes in your area and like me --- never stop learning because learning leadership is a lifetime commitment.

One of the Best Free Sites on Leadership Books and More. One of the best web sites around for information on leadership is Leadership Now at www.leadershipnow.com. I think they carry and review every leadership book published and I believe they were among the first to review A Class with Drucker. You can see their review among others below. But they have a lot more on leadership at their site, and I highly recommend it.

Book Reviews of A Class with Drucker. I have decided to post all book reviews available --- good, bad, and indifferent --- as received. If you see one not posted, please send it and I will include it. Just click Drucker Book Reviews.

Peter Drucker had an extraordinary knowledge of many topics. Yet there were a few areas of business which he seemed to exclude as a distinct element to study. He had such an in-depth knowledge about so many topics that I never thought to ask him why. For example, I was surprised that he did not emphasize leadership more. After all, almost every management writer you can name has also written one or more books on leadership and some focus on leadership to the exclusion of other aspects of management. I believe he didn't write about leadership separately because he thought leadership so basic to every aspect and functional area of management. Once I wrote and submitted a paper to him for an assignment on leadership. As I recall, I included some of the complicated leadership mumbo-jumbo which was becoming popular among academics. He returned the paper across which he had scrawled, "Now I'm really confused." In fact, he did not minimize the importance of leadership and it ran through most of his lectures in every class and in many writings.

Long after I left his classroom, Drucker did write about the leader of the future. He believed strongly in what leadership could accomplish in any organization, but he also believed that the purpose of leadership was for the benefit of the organization, of society, and those led, not for the benefit of the leader.

Some writers have suggested that the reason that Drucker largely abandoned his emphasis on corporate management in the latter years of his life to focus on the non-profits and non-profit management was that he had lost faith in corporate management. I cannot confirm this, but I do know that he was vastly disappointed in the prevalent attitude among many, even well known and well-thought of, successful managers. Their actions seemed to indicate that they practiced leadership as some sort of manipulation, first and foremost for their own benefit. He was appalled at the huge salaries taken by senior management of many organizations, not a few while their organizations stumbled and their workers were laid off. He was dumbfounded by the lifestyles promoted by many and the concept of the “trophy wife,” as if all this was a reward to themselves for their success in having fought their way to the top. Despite his immense success, Peter himself lived in a modest house on a middle class street with Doris, his wife of more than sixty years. She has written that he never failed on wakening to greet her with “Good morning my dearest darling.” It was as if Peter was trying to set the example for managers worldwide that to be a leader was a calling. That one should live modestly, morally, and for the benefit of others.

In the late1990’s I shared extensive research I had done on battle leaders of all ranks and services who had gone on to extraordinary success leading other organizations once they had left the military. I wondered if they had learned principles during their military careers which had helped them to success as civilians. Surprisingly, most of their responses boiled down to only eight categories. As most of my readers know, I called these “the Eight Universal Laws of Leadership” and these are the basis of all of my thinking on leadership. The idea was that leaders in all types of organizations could use this information to help them to lead with integrity and honor. In the fall of 1997, I shared this information with Peter. He was very enthusiastic about the idea and encouraged me in my desire to publish my research in an applied book for managers. The resulting book was The Stuff of Heroes: The Eight Universal Laws of Leadership (Longstreet Press, 1998) and was on the Los Angeles Times best seller list. The book is now out of print, though I hope eventually to bring it up to date and have it published again.

To get some idea of Drucker’s feelings about leadership, I would like to share his responses to each “law” at the time that I showed them to him. These may not be his exact words, but they do represent his thoughts and what he was trying to convey.

“You are entirely right and absolutely correct in listing this as your first law. A leader can be well-liked and popular and even competent and that’s all well and good, but if he lacks integrity of character he is not fit to be a leader.”

“This seems obvious, but some managers do try to cut corners rather than mastering the knowledge that they must have and that is essential to the quality of their performance.”

“I’m uncertain what you mean by this. If you mean that a leader should declare his objectives. His mission --- by all means.”

“The failure of many is because they show no commitment, or commitment to the wrong goals. This gets back to your third law. Commitment comes from a worthy mission and then strong commitment.”

“There is a cautionary tale. One must not be a ‘Pollyanna.’ Still the central thought is correct. One cannot be negative and succeed in anything.”

“This should be the basis of all leadership. The leader cannot act in one’s own interests. It must be in the interests of the customer and the worker. This is the great weakness of American management today.”

“Very true where as junior leader or the CEO the leader must be where the work is the most challenging. During World War I the losses among higher ranking officers was rare compared with the losses they caused by their incompetence. Too few generals were killed.”

Drucker concluded by commenting that there were other useful principles of leadership, and that a manager must first decide to be a leader. While all of the principles I had uncovered from battle leadership would help, the prime principle was what I called “duty before self.” “A leader, any leader,” he continued,” must be for the benefit of others and not for oneself.”

This first paragraph repeats what I said last month about this remarkable book for leaders --- except to add the book also goes under the title of The Persian

Expedition.

For years I avoided reading this book.  In fact, I had never heard of it until the world famous management guru, Peter F. Drucker became my professor at

what is now the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University in California. Drucker claimed that

the first systematic book on leadership was written by Xenophon two thousand years ago, and was still the best. This was in 1976.

I had been reading books on leadership ever since I had become a Patrol Leader in the Boy Scouts. As a West Pointer and later an Air force officer, I had

read even more. I had never heard of Xenophon, but I knew that if he wrote this book two thousand years ago, it was not going to be written in modern,

dynamic style and I would be bored silly. So almost intentionally, I looked the other way, even when I saw a modern translation.

I didn’t actually read Xenophon until years later. I sat down to write my first book on leadership. I remembered Drucker’s words and when I next spoke to him

by phone, he told me how fascinating the book was. At the time, I was a colonel in the Air Force. “You’ll like the book, “ Drucker said. “Xenophon was a

military man, too. In fact, he was a general.”

So here was arguably the foremost management philosopher of our time telling me this book, written 2000 years ago by a general had something to say not

only to me as a military leader, but to business leaders as well. I couldn’t see how I could tell others about what I learned without following Drucker’s

recommendation and reading Xenophon. I was glad I did.

Xenophon was part of a 10,000 man Greek army hired by the Persian pretender to the throne, Cyrus the Younger, to defeat his brother in the fourth century

B.C.  At the time, the Greeks were considered the best infantrymen in the world. Cyrus thought that with these troops he could surprise and defeat his

brother’s vastly superior force and seize the throne.

At first things went well, but in a crucial battle, Cyrus himself was killed, the leading Greek generals were killed through treachery, and the campaign

collapsed leaving the 10,000 Greeks stranded in Babylon surrounded by hostile forces.  Xenophon was elected as one of the replacement generals.

Our Military Expedition to Persia tells the story of the fight to return to the Black Sea against overwhelming odds. This march, the most famous in history,

took five months. It is a story of courage, improvisation, and discipline, self-sacrifice, and above all . . . LEADERSHIP.

Xenophon practiced leadership in a different time and a different place. His leadership challenges were of a different type than those I faced in the Air Force,

or later in business or as an academic leader.  But Drucker was right. The basis of his illustrations, the lessons of his experiences, the principles or laws of

integrity, commitment, duty and the others that I discovered in my research of modern leaders were absolutely and dramatically confirmed. Whatever your

leadership challenges, you can learn from Xenophon’s experiences, and like Drucker, I am happy to recommend it to you.

After the Greek generals had been killed and replacement generals elected or appointed, with good reason, there was general fear in the Greek camp. But no one took action. Xenophon was not a general. He wasn't even the senior Greek officer. but no one was doing anything. Finally, Xenophon asked himself: "What am I doing here doing nothing? What city is going to produce the general to take the right steps? Am I waiting to become a little older? If I don't take action, I'll never become older --- I'll be dead!"

This is a lesson for all of us in no matter what organization we lead. There is never a reason for inaction in an emergency. As the saying goes: "Don't just stand there, do something!" And Xenophon did. He took charge and convinced the Greeks to elect new generals to replace those that had been assassinated.

Afterwards, Xenophon called the new generals together and gave them some important instruction in leadership:

It is remarkable in reviewing these statements how much they parallel the "eight universal laws of leadership" which I found in my research in the 1990's, especially:

As we see as we read Xenophon, he missed none of the eight universal laws, including

Xenophon literally walked his talk. When one soldier complained that he had to walk and carry a shield while Xenophon was mounted, Xenophon jumped from his horse, took the man's shield and pushed him out of the ranks. Xenophon led the pace and encouraged others while carrying the shield and while wearing a heavy cavalry breast plate as well. When the going was light, he led on horseback, but when the terrain was difficult or it was impossible to ride, he dismounted and led on foot from the front.

When some of his soldiers were disheartened because the Greeks had no cavalry, whereas their enemies did, Xenophon reminded them of something that centuries later, General George S. Patton told his army. "Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men."

Xenophon put it this way: "Ten thousand cavalry only amount to ten thousand men. No one has ever died in battle by being bitten or kicked by a horse; it is men who do whatever gets done in battle." The same can be said about any human endeavor --- it is men and women who get the job done every time. So if you are despondent, or overly concerned about your lack of resources when compared with a competitor or the situation, remember Xenophon --- it is people, not horses, that win battles, or market campaigns, political campaigns, or anything else. This doesn't mean that resources, or "horses" mean nothing --- but it does mean that they are not the deciding factor --- people are. You can be successful without resources, but not without people.

Xenophon took care of his people first. He kept his word to them and he never exploited his position as overall commander to his own personal benefit. In fact, just the opposite. When promises were made to his soldiers which were not fulfilled. He risked his own situation to ensure that promises made by others were fulfilled, even though he personally was no longer commander and had little to gain.

We can learn many lessons from Xenophon, whatever the title of his book. Peter Drucker was right on target about recommending him to all leaders.

THIS MONTHS FREE DOWNLOADABLE BOOK: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was an amazing man. Born poor, he rose to become a leader in many different fields including a businessman, publisher, printer and inventor. He was the first Postmaster General, became an ambassador, and was even a colonel in the colonial militia. Franklin agreed with many leaders who rose to the top of their professions: “Others follow because of my integrity,” he said.

Franklin was tremendously interested in self-development and as a result he put many of his thoughts, ideas, and analysis into his autobiography. This was done to such an extent that many modern writers have termed Franklin’s autobiography America's first self-help book . Although Franklin never actually finished his autobiography, what he did write is tremendously valuable for all leaders today. You'll find the book for free downloading courtesy of Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext94/bfaut11.txt .

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