Peter Drucker: The Father of Modern Management
Non-profit organization, corporate society, management by objectives, are all terms being used and taught today and all have something in common. What is it you ask? Peter Drucker. He was the man behind all of these ideas and their growth into what they have become today. He has been titled many things including, “The Man Who Invented Corporate Society” and “the father of management principles”. The article, Drucker (2005), stated that Peter was “hailed by Business Week as “’the most enduring management thinker of our time’” (p. 1).
Peter Ferdinand Drucker was born on November 19, 1909 in Kaasgraben, a suburb of Vienna, Austria. Peter’s father, Adolf worked for the Austrian government until 1938 when Hitler invaded. After the invasion, Adolf came to the United States and became a professor of International Economics at two universities and a professor of European literature at the University of California until he dies in 1967. Caroline, Peter’s mother was one of the first women in Austria to study medicine.
As a boy, Peter attended many of the dinner parties that his parent’s threw. Since Adolf worked in the government, the typical guest list included intellectuals, government officials, and scientists. It would be common to have guests including Sigmund Freud and Joseph Schumpeter.
In 1927, Drucker graduated from gymnasium and went to work as a junior clerk in export houses. He moved to Frankfurt in 1929 and shortly thereafter received his doctorate degree in public law and international relations from the University of Frankfurt. One of Peter’s first writings, Conservative Political Theory and Historical Change was banned by the Nazi’s. Drucker move to England in 1933 afte...
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... up the corporations rather than just what results they were producing. “He sought not just to make our economy more productive but to make all of society more productive and more humane” Collins (2010) wrote. He realized long before it was popular that morality is the foundation of management. “To view other human beings as merely a means to an end, rather than as ends themselves, struck Drucker as profoundly immoral” Collins (2010) said.
Drucker taught and encouraged executives to be an authentic leader. An authentic leader “needs to be aware of, feel comfortable with, and act consistently with their values, personality, and self-concept” (pp. 354-355) according to McShane & Van Glinow (2013). Peter himself was an authentic leader. He not only practiced what he preached in terms of leadership he also suggested that the executives he was consulting do the same.
This investigation will address the research question, to what extent was Germany’s post-World War I economic depression a causal factor in Hitler’s rise to power from 1919 to 1934? With the Treaty of Versailles, the German government was required to pay 132 billion gold marks of war reparations, drastically worsened with the US Wall Street crash. This effectively crippled the German economy and created a desperate people. For this investigation, Hitler’s private life history and pre-military career will not be analyzed. His political rise will be examined from the perspective of economic and social factors. Several primary sources will be explored, including the Hitler’s Mein Kampf and Hitler’s 25-Point Program. In addition, tertiary sources covering Hitler’s non-personal life and rise to power will be studied.
Treitschke, Heinrich. “History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century and Historical and Political Writings.” The Human Record. By Alfred J. Andrea and James H. Overfield. Vol. 2. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2011. 2 vols. 292-295.
On April 20, 1889, Adolph Hitler was born to Alois and Klara Hitler in the city of Braunau on the border between Austria and Germany. By looking at Hitler’s early years, one is able to understand the events and conditions in his foundational years that developed both his personality and character. "His family epitomized the middle class in terms of income, assets, expenditures and standard of living."1 From the beginning Hitler’s parents feared that he would not survive his childhood because he was constantly sick. His mother gave him lots of love, to the extent of overprotection and indulgence. Hitler learned to take advantage of Klara’s concern for him. His father, on the other hand, took more of a distant role while Hitler was growin...
Himmler graduated in July 1919. He majored in agriculture at the Technical University in Munich. This is where he combined a German-nationalist student group and began to read intensely in the racist-nationalist literature popular on the essential right of the interwar German political field. By the time he received his university degree in August 1922, Himmler was a nationalist and a political activist. Forced to take a job in a manure-processing factory near Munich, Himmler made contact with t...
They have profound convictions for for their leadership; Their behavior always reflect their core values and they view themselves as individuals that “lead with their hearts as well as their heads while also building enduring organizations” (George 2003). Leaders are encouraged to maintain the perception of authenticity but making sure that their words are consistent and reflect their action or intentions. They should not be so pompous and arrogant that they cannot relate to or find mutual and common ground with their staff. (Goffee & Jones 2005)
The most effective leaders know better than to try to be someone they are not. They should always be searching for opportunities to reinvest in their strengths. Leaders need to stay true to who they are and make sure they have the right people around them. The book says those who surround themselves with similar personalities are at a disadvantage to those who are secure enough to be surrounded by people who strengths will compliment theirs.
]Haffner, is a book which is hard to define. Only 165 pages long, Haffner has crammed more relevant information into this book than many twice its length. He observes Hitler's roller coaster ride through life and the country that he eventually took along. From Hitler's private life to the complete betrayal of Germany, Haffner evaluates the conditions and impetus for Hitler's accomplishments and failures. These include not only Hitler's psyche, but also the political arena of post World War I Europe.
In 1930, young, teenage Mengele completed high school and left his home to study medicine at Munich University in Germany. Adolf Hitler was stirring up the Bavarian people at this time with his “anti-Jewish” ideas. He attracted large crowds, who gather...
...rnegie was a wealthy upper-class man and believed in survival of the fittest, he was worried about the “proper administration of wealth.” (Weber 45) He believed that wealth should be in the control of the only a handful of people and they should decide how to administer the wealth; however, he didn’t want a corporate aristocracy either. In 1889, Andrew Carnegie wrote a book called The Gospel of Wealth which offered a solution to these problems.
Feuchtwanger, E. J. From Weimar to Hitler: Germany, 1918-33. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993.
When people think of leadership so many things rush through their heads. For example am I a leader, am I apart of a group that has a leader, and what does being a leader mean? A common definition of being a leader is a person who leads or guides a group of people. So now knowing the definition of a leader who pops into your head; Phil Jackson, Mike Krzyzewski, Martin Luther King Jr.? All of these people are great leaders, but the real question is why are they so great? One very important thing that all these men have in common is they have a philosophy of leadership. This philosophy is going to help guide these men during turbulent times, or when they need guidance themselves. Nobody is perfect and everyone needs direction no matter how wise or gifted you are. I am no different, which is why writing this philosophy of leadership is going to be a fruitful experience for years to come.
Fritzsche, Peter. Life and Death in the Third Reich. 1st Ed. ed. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP,
Many Scholars characterize the core qualities and skills necessary for an effective leader. Useem defines leadership as “Creating a vision and translating that vision into actions”. Historically, an effective leader was assumed to be exceptionally knowledgeable, authoritative, and dominate. Those leaders applied the command and control method to lead an organization. With the passage of time, this definition has been changed. The modern definition of an effective leader is honest, courageous, trustworthy, inspirational, and result-oriented. Today’s leaders create shared values and vision, and empower others to achieve their targets.
Mann writes this story shortly after the first World War through the eyes of a German Professor. The story takes place in Munich, Germany in the year 1926 where the Professor and his family prepare themselves for a party in the late afternoon (Mann 2). The results of the Great War are present throughout the entir...
Leadership has been described as a “complex process having multiple dimensions” (Northouse, 2013). Over the past 60 years, scholars and practitioners have introduced a vast amount of leadership models and theories to explain this complex field and examine its many perspectives. Numerous leadership theories and models have attempted to define what makes a leader effective. From the early 1900s, the trait paradigm dominated leadership literature, focusing on inherited traits of leaders and suggesting that “leaders are born, not made”. However, during the 1950s, the trait approach lost enthusiasm as focus shifted to the behavior of leaders. Similar to the trait theory, the behavioral paradigm was based on general effective leadership behaviors