FOLLOW THE LEADER
not be possible to interpret a mandate except in a narrow sense. That
discipline enables the leader to set boundaries...When a leader is sure
of the mandate, he or she can create a more effective leadership team.
One can discipline and evaluate people in the light of the mandate...
Selection is largely determined by the mandate...If someone is not
moving the mandate forward by his or her activity, then that activity
should be stopped...A mandate gives a leader the ability to define the
leadership he needs.^60
- As leaders think about the mandate for their particular organization,
they should remember that the simplest way it can be accomplished
is the most effective. Organizations tend to let what they do become
too complicated...There are only two questions you need to answer
starting out: Number one: ‘What are you really trying to do?’
Number Two: ‘What is the simplest way you can do it?’...Albert
Einstein once said that whatever God does, He does in its simplest
form. And how can we improve on that?^61
- ...have the courage...to say ‘no’ to other things. And the way you do
that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside.^62
- ...I heard...Rev. Dr. Nigel McPherson, use some thought-provoking
words to define happiness: “something to love, something to do,
and something to hope for.”...If one of Reverend McPherson’s
“somethings” is missing, you have a happiness deficiency that only
you can fill...^63
- Drucker’s understanding of business is also humane. He has never
accepted profit as a goal for any enterprise. Rather, profit is a necessity
- for without an adequate margin of profit, business cannot survive,
or if it survives, cannot grow and innovate. Profit is always a means
to an end, never an end. Nor does business, in Drucker’s mind, exist
to make and sell things. Business exists to meet human needs...you
have to define what needs you will meet, and how...^64
- ...people who are cause-oriented. Those with double agendas are like
those with double-mindedness, against which the Scripture warns.
When we focus and screw down the nozzle, we increase the force of
the water...Once you decide what you want to do and the strategy
that will accomplish it, then decision-making becomes simple. You do
the things that advance the strategy and avoid the things that hinder
it...^67
- Drucker preaches incessantly that leaders must find out what their
own unique contribution can be. He applies the sermon to himself,
