A ppt made from Harvard Business Review's 10 Must reads On Leadership. What makes an Effective Executive by Peter F Drucker is the second article in the HBR collections on Leadership
2. HARRY S TRUMAN
33rd President of the United States
The only president without a College Degree.
Harry Truman did not have one ounce of
Charisma, for example, and yet he was
among the most effective chief executives in
the U.S. history. Among his accomplishments
as President were integrating the military,
defeating Nazi Germany, and initiating the
Berlin Airlift.
3. The Practices that makes an Effective Executive
8
Run PRODUCTIVE meetings
Ask what’s RIGHT for the enterprise
Develop ACTION PLAN
Take responsibility for DECISIONS
Take responsibility for COMMUNICATING
Ask what needs to be DONE
Think and say “WE” not “I”
Focus on OPPORTUNITIES
The first two practices help to gain the
knowledge you need to make smart
decisions
The next four helped them to convert
this knowledge into effective action
The last two practices ensure that the
whole organization felt responsible
and accountable.
5. Ask what needs to be done
Jack welch realized that what needed to
be done at General Electric when he
took over as CEO. It was not the
overseas expansion he wanted to
launch. It was getting rid of GE
businesses or number two in their
industries.
When Steve Jobs was reinstated as CEO
in 1997. One of his immediate actions
was to reduce the product line from 15
to only 3 products. “The people who are
crazy enough to think they can change
the world are the ones who do.”
6. Ask what’s right for the enterprise
At DuPont and J. Lyons, for instance, all top managers (except the controller and lawyer) were family members in the early years when the
firm was run as a family business. All make descendants of the founders were entitled to entry-level jobs at the company. Beyond the
entrance level, a family member got a promotion only if a panel composed primarily of non-family managers judged the person to be
superior in ability and performance to all other employees at the same level.
8. Write an ACTION PLAN
Knowledge is useless until it has been translated into deeds
Napoleon allegedly said that no successful battle ever
followed its plan. Yet Napoleon also planed every one
of his battles, far more meticulously than any earlier
general had done. Without an action plan the
executive becomes a prisoner of events.
9. Take responsibility for DECISIONS
• Name of person Accountable
• Deadline
• Names of people affected by the decision
• Names of people to be informed of the decision
A decision has not been made until people know
10. Thanks to Chester Barnard’s 1938 The Functions of the Executive, that organizations are held together by
information rather than by ownership or command
Take responsibility for COMMUNICATING
11. Focus on OPPORTUNITIES
An unexpected success or
failure in their own
enterprise, in a competing
enterprise, or in the industry
A gap between what is and
what could be in a market,
process or product, or
service*
Innovation in a process,
product, or service, whether
inside or outside the
enterprise or its industry
Changes in industry
structure and market
structure
Changes in mindset,
values, perception,
mood or meaning
New knowledge or a
new technology
*(for example, in the nineteenth century, the paper industry concentrated on the 10% of each tree that became wood pulp and totally neglected the possibilities In the remaining 90% , which became waste)
SUCCESS (OR FAILURE) GAP INNOVATION CHANGES IN MARKET
DEMOGRAPHICS CHANGES IN MINDSET NEW KNOWLEDGE
13. Make MEETINGS productive
ALFRED SLOAN, who headed General Motors from the 1920s
until 1950s, spent most of his six working days a week in
meetings – three days a week in formal committee meetings
with a set membership, the other three days in ad hoc
meetings with individual GM executives or with a small group
of executives.
14. Think and say - WE
Plus follow the rule,
Listen First, Speak Later
