Not enough generals were killed.
All the effective leaders I have encountered—both those I worked with and those I merely watched—knew four simple things: a leader is someone who has followers; popularity is not leadership, results are; leaders are highly visible, they set examples; leadership is not rank, privilege, titles, or money, it is responsibility.
When I was in my final high school years, our excellent history teacher—himself a badly wounded war veteran—told each of us to pick several of a whole spate of history books on World War I and write a major essay on our selections. When we then discussed these essays in class, one of my fellow students said, “Every one of these books says that the Great War was a war of total military incompetence. Why was it?” Our teacher did not hesitate a second but shot right back, “Because not enough generals were killed; they stayed way behind the lines and let others do the fighting and dying.” Effective leaders delegate, but they do not delegate the one thing that will set the standards. They do it.
ACTION POINT: Don’t expect to retain the respect of your employees if you completely delegate the central function of your enterprise, whether it’s healing patients or selling bonds.
The Leader of the Future
The Essential Drucker
Managing the Non-Profit Organization
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker