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LEADING WITH E-COMMUNICATIONS
CHAPTER 5
What Drucker did in this book, and 20 years later in Management: Tasks,
Responsibilities, Practices, was to quantify the manager’s role, not in some
learn-by-rote, restrictive way, but rather in a Churchillian neo-heroic way that
would cause the manager to see himself (and later herself) as one who can
accomplish things, and in so doing aspire to something greater. That theme of
aspiration for something better—a new system, a new management discipline,
a new social order—is inherent in all of Drucker’s work. 75
LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATOR
From where do Drucker’s ideas spring? He learns as he talks to people, and he
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also discovers his point of view as he teaches or writes about it. Curiously,
Drucker credits a course in admiralty law, which he took as part of a doctoral
program in Germany in the twenties, with giving him his management
insights. To Drucker, management is “an integrating discipline of human val-
ues and conduct, of social order and intellectual inquiry . . . feed[ing] off eco-
nomics, psychology, mathematics, political theory, history, and philosophy. In
short, management is a liberal art.” 11
Drucker is as much a social philosopher as he is a management consul-
tant. His canvas is not limited to the boardroom, or even to the spans of a
global corporation. Drucker has a wondrous ability to link the issues and chal-
lenges of modern management with history, be it ancient Greece, Rome, or
China. He drops in historical anecdotes the way other writers use punctuation.
The effect is to place management squarely within the entire span of human
history. And lest we forget it, Drucker is a teacher; his books are his lectures,
his visions, and his arguments for adopting new ways of thinking and doing.
At the same time, Drucker knows how to keep it simple. He loves orga-
nizing concepts into easy-to-remember paradigms, e.g., “The Ten Rules of
Effective Research . . . The Five Deadly Business Sins . . . Two Cores of
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Unity.” The contrast between the grand themes and the plain and simple gets
to the core of Drucker’s influence—he is relatively easy to understand. He is
not simplistic; his words, images, stories, and paradigms are used to make the
abstract seem vivid and accessible.

LISTENER OR READER?
One of his later essays, Managing Oneself, applies his management insights to
the individual. In the article, Drucker makes a striking insight into leadership
communication styles with another of his historical allusions. He relates how
General Dwight Eisenhower was loved by the press for his crisp, succinct
responses to their questions. A decade later, President Eisenhower was reviled
for his mumbling responses and his butchery of the language. The reason,
writes Drucker, is that Eisenhower was a reader, and he read specially pre-
pared briefing papers prior to his wartime press conferences. As president,