Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker could well be referred to as the father of modern management. Through his observations and synthesizing information, he carefully filtered those experiences to form the equally embraced modern management. Back in the days, management was more focused on productivity, supervising, and control. Through his observations, he brought into light that management needed to be decentralized delegating powers to their employees to empower them. He coined that management required objectives and have a mission. Additionally, he brought insights into the business that leadership should be about doing things right and having a moral stance because there is a future to think about (Fernandez, 2009). Companies that are successful today shouldn’t fail in the future. Drucker, in his spiritual philosophy, believed that organizations had secularized duties through socialism, capitalism, and fascism, and moral as well as ethical guidance was needed to create meaning in a devoid world. It was through Drucker’s works that he encouraged organizations to promote the meaningful lives of the employees, clients, and managers.

Fernandez (2009) identifies that Peter Drucker had several arguments to stand as to why purpose was vital to management, leadership, and ethics.  Drucker underlined that there was a need for clarity as to what a business is. ‘What is our business’ is the underpinning query among the company to understand and formulate their mission. He also argued the essence of the existence of businesses was to create a customer. Therefore organizations needed to understand who their customers are that would direct the purpose of the business. Businesses are also not subject to themselves and their stakeholders but also subject to the community to employ them, pay them, develop them and ensure their development and productivity, which is the very foundation of ethics as well as corporate social responsibility.

Apart from this, Drucker argues that good leadership is a life-giving element for every business. Leadership nurtures and gives the organization meaning promoting a more profound sense of mission in pursuit of the organizational goals. Therefore purpose forms as the key drive upon which all company values and objectives are based upon. It is what transforms a workplace from struggling to thriving.

Above discovering purpose was the principal argument that Drucker put through. Purpose was the revolutionary drive that set businesses to freedom. Drucker says that purpose was to be established in asking what the mission of the business was, what the customer’s wants are and the values that the business upholds. Today, these are the major upscale foundations that majority of the businesses hold themselves, before anything else, businesses will set their mission statement and vision which are part of the company profile.

I believe that Drucker’s spiritual foundation of management and leadership still holds true today because he is more relevant today than he was in years past. Majority of his concepts are more than ever widely implemented in many organizations. Modern managers today are being challenged to produce results in time of rapid technology and social change. They have to anticipate more change and therefore need to set forward-looking goals. The most prominent approach to achieving this is the use of management by objective (MBO) approach (Thomson Thomas). This concept was highly popularized by the Drucker as a successful execution of an organizations strategic plan. Now more than ever, it is more effective and reliable.

There is a growing consensus among leaders that businesses exist not only to make money but make the world a better place to live. There is a high demand not only to provide quality products, good profits and services but do much more to the employees, the clients the society and the environment at large. The components of corporate social responsibility and charity are much more common in organizations (Zu, 2019). Additionally, companies are more attentive in developing the careers of their employees. Businesses will consolidate with clients and customers to understand how to better improve the quality of products that they make for them or how to improve on services towards them. Businesses are also more sensitive to the products that they produce that they maintain the moral upholds of the society. To Drucker, this was the kind of picture that he had of what leadership and management should be. To have ethically accepted businesses that have a purpose not only to themselves but to the world at large.

Unquestionably the concept of sustainability today is one pure spiritual foundation of Drucker. Sustainable development is one that meets the needs of today without compromising those of the future. Sustainability gives attention to three major factors which are the social, economic and environmental factors (Kuhlman, 2010). Majority of the businesses today implementing sustainability put effort into ensuring that the economic targets of the company are met while maintaining a social growth of the people and without depleting or polluting the environment of its natural occurrence. Sustainability today is what Drucker had envisioned for companies to ensure that they remain economically viable but ensure that the social structure of the employees and the society grows and they check up on the environment as well.

Decentralization was also another central foundation for Drucker and today it has formed central to organizational structure. Majority of the managers prefer to disseminate some of the decision making and operation responsibilities to the employees and executive below, this is what has grown major businesses because some of the employees have had very good ideas for the business. This has created also an opportunity of expression for employees in case of management procedures that they feel aren’t going right for the business unlike centralization where management controls the product choices in divisions (Brandts, 2015). Basically it is a way of empowering employees which Drucker was key to state that was a major foundation to having a successful business.

In conclusion, Drucker presented a fresh approach of how we can improve our lives now and for those in future. From the spiritual foundations that Drucker presented, the discovery was for us and businesses to diversify our daily existence. It is to be open to new ideas, learn as much as we can from ourselves and from others and also sharpen our sense of integrity. It is a reminder as not to be forgetful of the world that we live in and the people in it because those are major components of our environment. Above all, leading right is promoting ethics within our society. Building a strong support system is an advantage rather than losing ourselves on a job that we may lose. Therefore living a total life includes our friends, family, work and colleagues. It is living beyond the boundaries of our daily employment.

REFERENCE

Fernandez, S. 2009. Peter Drucker’s leap to faith: Examining the origin of his purpose-driven life and its impact on his views of management. Journal of Management History, 15(4), 404-419. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17511340910987329

Zu Liangrong, 2019. Purpose-driven leadership for sustainable business: from the perspective Taoism. International journal of corporate social responsibility. (3). Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40991-019-0041-z

Kuhlman T and Farrington J, 2010. What is sustainability? (2) 3436-3448. Retrieved from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/29240768.pdf

Brandts J and Copper D, 2015. Centralized and decentralized management: an experimental study. Graduate schools of economics. Retrieved from http://www.iae.csic.es/investigatorsMaterial/a15412131834archivoPdf4601.pdf

Thomson T. Management by objectives. The Pfeiffer library. Vol 20. 2^nd Ed. Retrieved from https://home.snu.edu/~jsmith/library/body/v20.pdf