Drucker on Leadership: New Lessons from the Father of Modern Management

Chapter 20. Applying Marketing to Leadership

Perhaps Drucker's greatest leadership gift is one of his least known but also one of his most far-reaching and integrative ideas: good leadership is essentially marketing. This concept is based on Peter's view that all knowledge workers are partners in an organization, and therefore cannot simply be ordered around. They must be led, and leadership, Drucker concluded, was a marketing job.^[206]

I had previously looked at the necessity for persuasion in both salesmanship and leadership. However, Drucker did not say "salesmanship"; he said "marketing." I immediately understood exactly what he meant, and was awed by his genius and his ability to integrate facts and theories from different disciplines to arrive ...