Whether you are the head of a large company, or a mid-level manager responsible for a single division, or even a single employee in a start-up company, what you do as a leader fundamentally shapes the destiny of your organization, according to Gayle Beebe in his book The Shaping of an Effective Leader: Eight Formative Principles of Leadership. The world desperately needs individuals willing to pay the price, undergo the development and put up with the inconvenience in order to provide effective leadership.
The book, which is in part a panegyric to the celebrated management teacher and author Peter Drucker, arises from lessons learnt during the author’s leadership experience which includes 12 years as a college president. The author identifies 8 principles arranged in a pyramid structure, with character as the base upon which are built competence, chemistry, culture, compatibility, convictions, connections and commitment. For each level of the pyramid there is a vice and a virtue, and the discussion of each principle draws on the teachings of Drucker.
I agree with the author that the world needs a lot more of the right sorts of leaders. Whilst I did not find the book as enthralling as some of the other books on leadership that I have read, there is in my opinion a lot of sound and helpful advice to be found between the covers. Hopefully readers will be sufficiently enticed by the quotes from Peter Drucker to try reading some of his works first-hand.