CHAPTER  |  EIGHT

Drucker and Heroic Leadership

In 1978, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author James MacGregor Burns published his now classic book Leadership. In it he placed leadership into two categories: transactional and transformational. Transformational leadership was the preferred process, in that it was more potent and engaged the full person of the follower. Leaders and followers stimulated each other to advance followers into leaders and might even convert leaders into moral agents. The transformational approach clearly has much to recommend it, including significant positive change in people and organizations, changes in perceptions and values, and changes in the expectations and aspirations of those led. In short, transformational leaders are idealized because they are not focused on benefits to themselves, but on benefits for the organization, its members, and those they serve.

According to Burns, transactional leadership is based on the exchange relationship of simple reward for obedience or punishment for disobedience. Many have criticized heroic leadership on this basis. There is even a “postheroic-leadership” type recommended by some leadership experts today in which organizations supposedly operate, or should operate, that espouses a lack of hierarchical control where members essentially lead the organization themselves and the leader is mostly a figurehead and cheerleader. How did Drucker see it?

The Origin of Heroic Leadership

To fully understand Drucker's views, we need to look at the origins of what today is called “heroic leadership.” Interestingly, it was the same Burns who introduced the concept. But it wasn't as some think. Perhaps misled by a misunderstanding of what the name represented, some have corrupted Burns's concept of heroic leadership, such that it has become the ultimate representative of the less desirable transactional type and of much that has gone wrong within organizations in recent years. Yet Burns introduced heroic leadership not as an example of transactional leadership but clearly as an example of the preferred transformational type.^1,2

Drucker's Complaint

Drucker did not agree with the interpretations of heroic or postheroic leadership. For example, he wrote and taught that there is no such thing as successful laissez-faire leadership, and that there must always be a leader responsible for directing an organization. That is, someone has to be in control. Even participative leadership was not a universal cure.

Referring to Douglas McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y, Drucker maintained that while the participation of members in decision making was desirable in many instances, there were times when Theory X (a directive style) was more effective than Theory Y (a participative style). Limited time for action might be one example. He pointed out that McGregor himself had written that he had never intended to recommend one theory over the other, only that management should analyze and determine in which situations each theory might be best applied.^3,4

Things Go Awry with Laissez-Faire Leadership

Drucker wrote that his friend and leadership expert, Warren Bennis, had tried implementing Theory Y in a more or less laissez-faire fashion in an attempt to raise achievement at the University of Buffalo during Bennis's tenure as president of that institution. As Drucker relates, “There was tremendous excitement but also total failure. Instead of achievement, there was lack of direction, lack of objectives, lack of controls, and frustration.” While pointing out that simply adopting Theory Y was not what was intended by McGregor, Drucker also stated that by itself Theory Y was inadequate and was not necessarily a new, better, or morally superior way of leading.

Lessons from the Ancients

Drucker further showed that the concepts of transformational leadership were known and practiced by the ancients several thousands of years ago. They confirmed Burns's concept regarding the categorization of heroic leadership as a transformational type. Drucker looked to historical documents for confirmation.

One example was Drucker's favorite leadership book, Kyropaidaia, which is sometimes translated as The Education of Cyrus the Great. As we discussed in Chapter 3, Drucker described it as the first systematic book on leadership, and still the best. The book was written by Xenophon, a Grecian general turned historian and author, about 2,005 years ago.⁵ It is full of examples of how to lead, using the metaphor of Cyrus the Great of Persia's learning and practicing leadership some 200 years before Xenophon's writings.

Xenophon wrote that Cyrus chose not to motivate primarily by the “carrot or stick” method—that is, the exchange method that defines transactional leadership. Cyrus's father convinced his son that, while he could gain obedience by compulsion, it was better to try a different approach: take care of his subordinates better than they would take care of themselves and take care of them even before his own welfare. Not only was this a superior way to gain obedience from his people, but they would do so “with great pleasure.”

Notice that there are no exchange concepts here. Xenophon suggested other aspects of good leadership that are suspiciously like transformational types currently recommended by most leadership experts today.

The Importance of Control

Xenophon also recommended to his readers: “Be in control and exercise discipline, for when no one exercises control, nothing useful ever gets done.” Detractors of heroic leadership sometimes use the term “command and control” in referencing the type of leadership that should be avoided. Yet both Xenophon and Drucker maintained that control is a necessity for good leadership.

The term “command and control” is a military one. Its official definition is “the exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commander over assigned and attached forces in the accomplishment of a mission.”⁶ It refers to a military commander's authority to have his legal orders obeyed. The term does not refer to leadership. It is simply a source of power, as are position, expertise, likability, and the like. Organizational leaders in civilian life have similar authority. However, among nonmilitary people, the term “command and control” leadership has come to mean a leader who leads through simply giving orders and demanding obedience. By this definition, “command and control” refers to a leader who uses a single behavioral influence strategy, direction, and has an authoritative, as opposed to a participative, style.

According to proponents, the so-called postheroic leader operates in a role in which there is little direct control. Instead, the postheroic leader leads only through influence. This is a simple, but gross misunderstanding of heroic leadership. The heroic leader always leads through influence, whether that influence is direct or indirect. Direction is necessary, for example, when time is a major factor or direction may be the only effective influence behavioral strategy that is likely to work. Yet a heroic leader may also use indirection by issuing no direct orders at all in leading. Both of these are part of his or her repertoire as a leader to be called on as appropriate to the situation.

Using Indirection to Save a Life

I heard a story once about a woman who was poised on the suspension of a bridge, determined to commit suicide by jumping into the waters far below. A policeman called to the woman to persuade her to climb back to safety. He tried logic and failed. He tried to order her down. That didn't work, either. All attempts failed and spectators realized that the woman was determined to jump. Finally, the policeman called to her and said: “Lady, you can jump if you want, but I sure wouldn't want to jump into that dirty water. It's full of sewage and garbage, and smells awful.” The woman hesitated, and then climbed back to the safe part of the bridge. Eventually others were able to get her to safety.

Drucker did not use the term “heroic leadership.” Yet his numerous writings and speeches made it clear that the right kind of leader was someone special, someone who would put subordinates, customers, and mission before himself to ensure that in leading, the leader would be fulfilling Drucker's own definition of leadership: “the lifting of a man's vision to higher sights, the raising of a man's performance to a higher standard, the building of a man's personality beyond its normal limitations.” That's heroic leadership in a nutshell.