now summarize under the term “emotional intelligence”: empathy, responsibility,
courage, honesty, modesty, and sociability.
As such, Drucker’s comprehensive, holistic and forward-thinking leadership
approach goes beyond the dimension of pure craftsmanship. He pursues a systemic,
action-oriented approach with the basic message that leadership can be learned.
At the same time, his approach also belongs to those that place the personality of the
leader with his or her character traits, decisions and relationship to their employees
in the center of good leadership. Thus, we will revisit Drucker’s insights at various
points in this book.
2.1.2 Management as Mass Profession
A recent and important representative of the “handicraft” who draws on Drucker’s
teachings is Fredmund Malik, a professor of Business Management and since 1984
head of the Malik Management Zentrum St. Gallen. Malik is an important thinker
and teacher in terms of leadership, as his practical approach is focuses on a
reduction to essentials and has a clear structure. It features the basic conditions
and requirements of leadership activities without glorifying leadership as some-
thing nearly mystical. He also expressed the decisive test of leadership: effective-
ness, thus providing a significant contribution to modern management practice.
Therefore, I want to examine his approach to effective leadership in detail. Despite
some differences, Malik and I agree on the basic premise that above all “leadership
must be effective” and share an admiration for Peter F. Drucker. According
to Malik, management is the “creative and moving body of a society and its
institutions” (Malik 2001, p. 8). The productivity, innovation and prosperity of a
society depend on good leadership. Essentially there is no longer any social sphere
that does not require leadership. Five percent of the employed population today
have management responsibilities within organizations; in areas such as computer
science, finance and consulting this figure jumps to 20–25% and is rising. Manage-
ment is thus the most important type of work in the modern mass society, according
to Malik.
Because of this central importance the manager is frequently – and wrongly –
hyped as a universal genius who has to fulfill a utopian list of requirements. He or
she seems to be some cross between an ancient general, a Nobel laureate and an
entertainer. This ideal manager of course does not exist. There are effective
managers and real “performers,” but they cannot be mass-produced in order to
develop a consistent personality profile to emulate. They are all different: hardly
surprising considering the fact that, as Malik reminds us, they are only human after
all.
All effective leaders share the ability to master their profession. This means that
they have certain principles that guide their actions. They perform their tasks by
using certain tools with great professionalism and effectiveness, and they take
responsibility. For Malik, as an element of professional leadership responsibility
28 2 Occupation or Calling: What Makes for Good Leadership?