Blow your trumpet loud and clear

Possibly the hardest thing for leaders who have taken over the direction of a product or service is to sound off clearly on what needs to be done.

Peter Drucker, consistently ahead of his time on leadership and business management, felt that management couldn’t create leaders but could create the conditions under which leaders thrive.

One of those conditions is creating a clear mission.

Here’s what Drucker has to say about it:

“The foundation of effective leadership is thinking through the organization’s mission, defining it and establishing it, clearly and visibly. The leader sets the goals, sets the priorities, and sets and maintains the standards. He makes compromises, of course; indeed, effective ­leaders are pitifully aware that they are not in control of the universe (only misleaders—the Stalins, Hitlers and Maos—suffer from that delusion). But before accepting a compromise, the effective leader has thought through what is right and what is desirable. The leader’s first task is to be the trumpet that sounds a clear sound.”

— Adapted from Inside Drucker’s Brain, Jeffrey A. Krames, Portfolio.