Because the organization is the primary form of the era, it is
also the primary shaper. The organization is, or should be, a
social architect—but this means that its executives must be so-
cial architects, too. First of all, they must guarantee that their
organizations are honest, ethical institutions. Then, they must
redesign their organizations in order to redesign society along
more humane and functional lines. They need, in a word, to be
leaders, rather than managers.
The great American corporations reflected and were exten-
sions of their founders. The Ford Motor Company was Henry
Ford. General Motors was Alfred Sloan. RCA was Robert
Sarnoff. Today’s corporations, too, are reflections of their
chiefs, but things aren’t as simple now, and the reflections are
often fractured. Further, the great old corporations were
agents of change—Henry Ford paid assembly line workers an
unheard-of wage: $5 per day!—while today’s large corporations
are, too often, its victims.
In this service-intensive, information-intensive age, every
organization’s primary resource is its people. Until the dot-
com debacle of the 1990s, more and more organizations had
come to appreciate that ideas and the people who have them
are their treasure. Good people were wooed, facilitated, and
rewarded. But as soon as the economy began to cool in 2000,
too many organizations once again began to see workers, not as
unique assets, but as interchangeable liabilities. This archaic at-
titude allows the organization to dismiss the potential contri-
butions of all its members and prevents it from fully using its
major resource in its effort to remake itself. Like the individual,
the organization must learn from its experience and fully de-
ploy itself and all of its assets; and like the individual, it must
lead, not merely manage, if it is to fulfill its promise.
On Becoming a Leader