Do Women Exemplify MLA Leadership?
Karen E. Linkletter, Ph.D.
PUBLISHED:
March 9, 2021
“The most important task of an organization’s leader is to anticipate crisis. Perhaps not to avert it, but to anticipate it…You cannot prevent a major catastrophe, but you can build an organization that is battle-ready, that has high morale, and also has been through a crisis, knows how to behave, trusts itself, and where people trust one another.”
— Peter Drucker, 1990
COVID 19 has certainly presented the world with a crisis to test heads of state, governors, and other leaders in the public and private sector. Researchers have been studying how various leaders have responded to the pandemic, with some focusing on the effective responses of national leaders who are women. Iceland, Taiwan, Germany, New Zealand, and Denmark are a few of the countries whose female heads of state managed to contain the virus early on and limit the financial and health impacts on their citizens.
Since women began to be more visible in positions of leadership about twenty years ago, much has been written about the “female leadership style.” It is interesting to note that many of the qualities attributed to women leaders appear not only to work particularly well in times of crisis, but also line up with Drucker’s concept of leadership as part of the practice of Management as a Liberal Art (MLA).
Recent literature on women leaders points to connections between the way women lead and the leadership skills Drucker emphasized as part of MLA. Consultants Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman used their own database of more than 60,000 reviews of business leaders to see how those leaders were evaluated before and after a crisis. They found that women rated more positively in 13 of 19 competencies for overall leadership effectiveness, and that this gender gap grew during a crisis. In other words, women tend to perform better during a crisis (https://hbr.org/2019/06/research-women-score-higher-than-men-in-most-leadership-skills).
What exactly are the skills that seem to be most effective in a crisis? They are not the skills that traditional models of leadership emphasize. The military-style, dominant, authoritarian model of the executive is not, in fact, the leader that is most effective in times of crisis. Avivah Wittenberg-Cox analyzed seven women leaders and their responses to COVID 19 and found that these heads of state modeled an “attractive alternative way of wielding power.” Their key leadership qualities? Truth, decisiveness, use of technology, and love/empathy. Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany (and a trained scientist), was transparent about the dangers of the virus from the beginning and emphasized testing and technology (https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/?sh=2a2f96903dec).
Other researchers and authors point to women’s use of empathy, team building, people development, and role modeling as part of their leadership practice. In “7 Leadership Lessons Men Can Learn From Women,” Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Cindy Gallop argue that, rather than training women to be more assertive and self-promoting, we should learn from women’s leadership strengths. These include knowing one’s strengths and also one’s limitations (and how others on a team can better contribute), putting others before yourself, and transforming and elevating others. In the words of the authors, “Academic studies show that women are more likely to lead through inspiration, transforming people’s attitudes and beliefs, and aligning people with meaning and purpose” (https://hbr.org/2020/04/7-leadership-lessons-men-can-learn-from-women).
What did Drucker have to say about leadership? He did not write about different leadership styles between men and women. But he did articulate the important qualities of leaders who practice MLA:
- They have clear values that are in line with the organization and its mission. They model these values in their behavior and how they uphold the organization’s higher purpose, providing clarity and truth so that everyone in the organization understands that they are part of a larger vision.
- They value trust. They understand that trust in their leadership and authority must be earned, and that they must place trust in those in the organization (who also have a responsibility to earn that trust). Leadership cannot operate under MLA without a climate of trust.
- Leaders feel an enormous sense of responsibility for both the mission of the organization and to support those being led. Leadership is not about power and authority but serving and bringing out the best in those who are part of the organization.
The traditional models of charismatic leadership, control and corrective action, and individualistic decision-making may work in some situations. But increasingly, research is showing us that the non-traditional, female-gendered models of leadership that emphasize Drucker’s MLA values of servant leadership, transparency and trust, empathy and concern for bringing out the best in those led, and clarity of values and mission are valuable in times of crisis. As Drucker said, we cannot prevent a major catastrophe, but we can build an organization ready to face it. And, as we celebrate Women’s History Month, it is perhaps time to finally acknowledge that women do not have to emulate men to be powerful leaders.
Peter Drucker suggested that readers view his first three books as a unified body of work: The End of Economic Man(1939), The Future of Industrial Man (1942), and Concept of the Corporation (1946). These works share a common theme: politics. Drucker did not think about politics like scholars who strictly follow modern social science norms. Instead, he viewed politics as part of social ecology and understood political events through the dynamic changes in social ecology. Despite having "corporation" in its title and using General Motors as a case study, Concept of the Corporation is indeed a book about politics. In this work, Drucker attempts to address the main issues that industrial society must resolve: the legitimacy of managerial authority, the status and function of managers and workers, and the power structure of society and organizations. In Drucker's own words, this is a book exploring the specific principles of industrial society. Corresponding to these specific social principles, Drucker had earlier attempted to develop a general social theory, which was the aim of The End of Economic Man and The Future of Industrial Man. The subtitle of The End of Economic Man is "The Origins of Totalitarianism." The book focuses on how society disintegrates in industrial societies and how totalitarianism rises. For Drucker, the real challenge of this topic isn't explaining how Hitler and Mussolini came to power, nor the actions of Germany and Italy in government, military, and economic spheres. Rather, it's understanding why some Europeans accepted clearly absurd totalitarian ideologies, and why others seemed potentially receptive to them. Drucker's writing style is argumentative. He clearly knew that to effectively advance his arguments, he needed to engage with popular theories of his time. Back then, there were two main explanatory approaches to Nazism and Fascism, which Drucker termed "illusions." Some viewed totalitarianism as ordinary political turmoil similar to previous historical revolutions. In their view, totalitarianism was characterized merely by cruelty, disruption of order, propaganda, and manipulation. Others considered totalitarianism a phenomenon unique to Germany and Italy, related to their specific national characters. Drucker thoroughly refuted explanations based on "national character." He believed that any historical approach appealing to "national character" was pseudo-history. Such theories always emphasize that certain events were inevitable in certain places. But all claims of "inevitability" negate human free will and thus deny politics: without human choice, there is no politics. If the rise of totalitarianism were inevitable, there would be no need or possibility to oppose it. Viewing totalitarianism as an ordinary revolution is equally dangerous. This thinking merely emphasizes how bad Nazis and Fascists were. But the real issue is that Europeans were not merely submitting out of fear—they were actually attracted to totalitarianism. And those attracted weren't just the ignorant masses but also well-educated intellectual elites, especially the younger generation. The world cannot defeat totalitarianism through contempt alone, especially if that contempt stems from ignorance. Understanding the enemy is a prerequisite to defeating it. Drucker identified three main characteristics of Nazism and Fascism (totalitarianism is a social type, with Nazism and Fascism being its representatives in industrialized Europe): 1. The complete rejection of freedom and equality, which are the core beliefs of European civilization, without offering any positive alternative beliefs. 2. The complete rejection of the promise of legitimate power. Power must have legitimacy—this is a long-standing tradition in European politics. For power to have legitimacy means that it makes a commitment to the fundamental beliefs of civilization. Totalitarianism denied all European beliefs, thereby liberating power from the burden of responsibility. 3. The discovery and exploitation of mass psychology: in times of absolute despair, the more absurd something is, the more people are willing to believe it. The End of Economic Man develops a diagnosis of totalitarianism around these three characteristics. Drucker offers a deeper insight: totalitarianism is actually a solution to many chronic problems in industrial society. At a time when European industrial society was on the verge of collapse, totalitarians at least identified the problems and offered some solutions. This is why they possessed such magical appeal. Why did totalitarianism completely reject the basic beliefs of European civilization? Drucker's answer: neither traditional capitalism nor Marxist socialism could fulfill their promises of freedom and equality. "Economic Man" in Drucker's book has a different meaning than in Adam Smith's work. "Economic Man" refers to people living in capitalist or socialist societies who believe that through economic progress, a free and equal world would "automatically" emerge. The reality was that capitalism's economic freedom exacerbated social inequality, while socialism not only failed to eliminate inequality but created an even more rigid privileged class. Since neither capitalism nor socialism could "automatically" realize freedom and equality, Europeans lost faith in both systems. Simultaneously, they lost faith in freedom and equality themselves. Throughout European history, people sought freedom and equality in different social domains. In the 19th century, people projected their pursuit of freedom and equality onto the economic sphere. The industrial realities of the 20th century, along with the Great Depression and war, shattered these hopes. People didn't know where else to look for freedom and equality. The emerging totalitarianism offered a subversive answer: freedom and equality aren't worth pursuing; race and the leader are the true beliefs. Why did totalitarianism reject the promise of power legitimacy? One reason was that political power abandoned its responsibility to European core beliefs. Another reason came from the new realities of industrial society. Drucker held a lifelong view: the key distinction between industrial society and 19th-century commercial society was the separation of ownership and management. The role of capitalists was no longer important. Those who truly dominated the social industrial sphere were corporate managers and executives. These people effectively held decisive power but had not gained political and social status matching their power. When a class's power and political status don't match, it doesn't know how to properly use its power. Drucker believed this was a problem all industrial societies must solve. Totalitarianism keenly perceived this issue. The Nazis maintained property rights for business owners but brought the management of factories and companies under government control. This way, social power and political power became unified. This unified power was no longer restricted or regulated—it became the rule itself. Why could totalitarianism make the masses believe absurd things? Because Europeans had nothing left to believe in. Each individual can only understand society and their own life when they have status and function. Those thrown out of normal life by the Great Depression and war lost their status and function. For them, society was a desperate dark jungle. Even those who temporarily kept their jobs didn't know the meaning of their current life. The Nazi system could provide a sense of meaning in this vacuum of meaning—though false, it was timely. Using the wartime economic system, the Nazis created stable employment in a short time. In the Nazi industrial system, both business owners and workers were exploited. But outside the industrial production system, Nazis created various revolutionary organizations and movements. In those organizations and movements, poor workers became leaders, while business owners and professors became servants. In the hysterical revolutionary fervor, people regained status and function. Economic interests were no longer important, freedom and equality were no longer important; being involved in the revolution (status) and dying for it (function) became life's meaning. The Nazis replaced the calm and shrewd "Economic Man" with the hysterical "Heroic Man." Though absurd, this new concept of humanity had appeal. What people needed was not rationality but a sense of meaning that could temporarily fill the void. Those theorists who despised totalitarianism only emphasized its evil. Drucker, however, emphasized its appeal. He viewed totalitarianism as one solution to the crisis of industrial society. From 19th-century commercial society to 20th-century industrial society, the reality of society changed dramatically. 19th-century ideas, institutions, and habits could not solve 20th-century problems. Capitalism could not fulfill its promises about freedom and equality, and neither could Marxism. It was at this point that totalitarianism emerged. Nazism and Fascism attempted to build a new society in a way completely different from European civilization. Drucker said the real danger was not that they couldn't succeed, but that they almost did. They addressed the relationship between political power and social power, proposed alternative beliefs to freedom and equality (though only negative ones), and on this basis provided social members with new status and function. The war against totalitarianism cannot be waged merely through contempt. Defeating totalitarianism is not just a battlefield matter. Those who hate totalitarianism and love freedom must find better solutions than totalitarianism to build a normally functioning and free industrial society. Totalitarianism gave wrong and evil answers. But they at least asked the right questions. Industrial society must address several issues: the legitimacy of power (government power and social power), individual status and function, and society's basic beliefs. These issues became the fundamental threads in Drucker's exploration of industrial society reconstruction in The Future of Industrial Man. The Future of Industrial Man: From Totalitarian Diagnosis to General Social Theory Both The End of Economic Man and The Future of Industrial Man feature the prose style of 19th-century historians. Even today, readers can appreciate the author's profound historical knowledge and wise historical commentary. For today's readers, the real challenge of these two books lies in Drucker's theoretical interests. He doesn't simply narrate history but organizes and explains historical facts using his unique beliefs and methods. In The End of Economic Man, Drucker developed his diagnosis of totalitarianism around three issues: power legitimacy, individual status-function, and society's basic beliefs. In The Future of Industrial Man, he also constructs a general social theory around these three issues. In "What Is A Functioning Society," Drucker explains three sets of tensions that exist in social ecology:
Last semester, two students approached me to advise their AI-based graduate projects at a time when no one else in the department was available or willing to take them on. Our department lacked sufficient faculty with software or AI specialization at the time to support the growing number of requests in this area. I decided to take on the projects and serve as their advisor. I was honest with them from the beginning and told them that I had no prior experience in training machine learning models. Still, I said that if they were willing to put in the effort, I would learn alongside them and support them every step of the way. Both students wanted to build careers in AI, and I knew that their graduate projects could set the tone for the opportunities ahead. I have always believed it is my responsibility to open doors for my students, even when the path ahead is uncertain. Although I understood how the overall system architecture should be designed, I was learning the rest in real time just like them. Others advised me not to take the risk, but I believed in their determination and their right to pursue ideas they were genuinely passionate about rather than what was convenient for faculty. Today, both students successfully demonstrated their projects, and I could not be prouder of what they had accomplished. When I think about this experience, I am reminded of Peter Drucker’s view that leadership is not rank or privilege; it is responsibility. He often wrote that a leader’s first duty is to help others perform to the best of their abilities. That means creating conditions where people can discover what they are capable of, not directing them from above, but believing in them enough to let them try. In this small lab moment, I saw that principle come alive. I did not have the answers, and they knew it. But leadership, as Drucker would say, is not about knowing everything. It is about doing the right thing, even when it means stepping into uncertainty. Trust replaced control. Curiosity replaced expertise. And in that space, both students grew, and so did I. Drucker believed the most effective organizations are those built on mutual trust, where authority is replaced by responsibility, and learning is shared across all levels. That day in the lab, I realized that education itself is one of the purest forms of management, not managing systems or people, but managing potential. Sometimes, the best leadership lesson does not come from a management book. It comes from saying yes when it would have been easier to say no, and discovering that faith in others is the most powerful management tool of all.
When Marc Benioff founded Salesforce in 1999, Silicon Valley had a pretty straightforward playbook which was technological disruption at any cost. Profit, scale, and market capture dominated corporate ambition. Benioff, who worked under Steve Jobs at Apple and explored Buddhist philosophy, was not satisfied with that approach. He envisioned a company that would not only revolutionize enterprise software through the cloud but also redefine the social purpose of business itself. His leadership at Salesforce reflects Peter Drucker's concept of Management as a Liberal Art (MLA). This idea holds that management is not just about efficiency or growth, but about making work human, creating meaning, and building institutions that serve society (Drucker, 1989). Philanthropy as Structure From Salesforce’s inception, Benioff took an unusual approach. He instituted the “1-1-1 model”, pledging one percent of company equity, product, and employee time to philanthropy. This simple yet radical idea embedded social responsibility into the company’s DNA, ensuring that business success translated into community benefit (Salesforce, 2021). Peter Drucker made a similar point in The Concept of the Corporation (1946). He argued that companies cannot operate as "islands of profit" detached from their communities. Benioff's model, now replicated worldwide through the Pledge 1% movement, demonstrates that corporate citizenship can be institutionalized, not just idealized. By formalizing philanthropy as part of corporate structure rather than discretionary charity, Salesforce gave proof to Drucker’s claim that companies can serve as stabilizing social institutions. Human-Centered Leadership Drucker emphasized that management is a humanistic discipline requiring both knowledge and self-awareness. Benioff has consistently modeled this through self-reflection and moral grounding. As a long-time advocate of mindfulness and meditation, he integrates spiritual awareness with corporate purpose. In Trailblazer (2019), Benioff reflects on how introspection informs strategic clarity and ethical leadership. Compassion is a core managerial value for Benioff. This aligns with Drucker’s insistence that good leaders must "engage the whole human being," acknowledging both rational capability and emotional complexity. In cultivating mindfulness as an organizational practice, Benioff turns what Drucker called “self-knowledge” into a shared institutional expectation, not a private exercise. Stakeholder Capitalism in Practice Perhaps Benioff’s most significant Druckerian contribution is his public challenge to shareholder primacy. As a high-profile advocate of stakeholder capitalism, he has urged fellow executives to view not just investors, but also customers, employees, communities, and the planet as legitimate stakeholders in corporate decision-making. Drucker anticipated this shift in 1999 when he argued that institutions must balance individual rights with broader social responsibilities, and that leadership must be anchored in moral purpose rather than short-term gain. Benioff operationalized this at Salesforce by making equality, climate action, and community impact strategic priorities alongside financial metrics. Salesforce has built environmental and social-impact objectives into its leadership accountability and public reporting, positioning those outcomes as core measures of performance rather than PR exercises. In Drucker's terms, this marks a shift from a purely economic mandate to an explicitly ethical one. Building a Meaningful Culture At Salesforce, Benioff’s internal culture emphasizes equality, diversity, and trust. His mantra of “Ohana” a Hawaiian term for family defines the company’s social ethos. Through listening sessions, employee councils, and direct engagement with staff, Benioff attempts to cultivate what Drucker would call a functioning institution: a place where individuals are offered both status and function, and where they derive meaning through active contribution. One concrete expression of this philosophy is Salesforce’s repeated company-wide pay equity audits. The company has publicly acknowledged compensation gaps across gender and race and then allocated millions of dollars to close them. This reflects Drucker’s view that organizations must respect human dignity and align personal fulfillment with collective mission. Benioff’s conviction that fairness can be measured and corrected turns theory into everyday management practice. Balancing Technology and Humanity In Post-Capitalist Society (1993), Drucker identified the rise of the knowledge worker as a defining feature of modern institutions. Salesforce, as a platform for digital collaboration across sales, service, marketing, analytics, and commerce, is organized around those workers. But Benioff’s management philosophy resists the idea that productivity can be reduced to code and dashboards. He argues that innovation begins in empathy and trust, not automation, which echoes Drucker’s warning that management cannot dissolve into technique. At the same time, Salesforce has embraced artificial intelligence through Einstein GPT and autonomous AI agents to automate routine tasks. While this automation has replaced certain roles, Benioff has publicly insisted that human connection remains irreplaceable in high-value work such as enterprise sales, and Salesforce is simultaneously hiring thousands of additional salespeople. By automating repetitive tasks while elevating distinctly human work, Benioff is enacting Drucker’s belief that technology must remain subordinate to judgment, responsibility, and moral purpose (Drucker, 1990). His leadership has also demonstrated Drucker’s axiom that effective management requires balancing continuity with change. Continuity and Change Over two decades, Salesforce has evolved from a single product - customer relationship management delivered via the cloud - to a global platform ecosystem spanning analytics, integration, AI, collaboration, and industry-specific solutions. Yet it’s core values; trust, customer success, innovation, and equality have remained remarkably consistent. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted this balance. Salesforce mobilized its logistics network and relationships to support public health responses, sourced and donated medical equipment, and repurposed internal systems to help governments and hospitals. Simultaneously, it accelerated digital transformation for its customers, positioning the company as both economic actor and civic partner. This is management serving society not just stakeholders. Moral Stewardship and Systems Thinking A key aspect of Drucker’s MLA is its interdisciplinary nature. He describes management as a liberal art because it must draw on ethics, psychology, economics, history, and even theology to exercise wise judgment (Drucker, 1989). Benioff exemplifies this approach. He openly blends spiritual language, social justice arguments, civic activism, and technology strategy. He links corporate tax policy to homelessness and public health, climate action to fiduciary duty, and workforce equity to innovation capacity. This is not accidental rhetoric. It is an attempt to widen the frame of what “business leadership” is allowed to talk about. And in doing so, Benioff turns the CEO role into something closer to what Drucker called moral stewardship: the active use of organizational power to strengthen society’s fabric. A Model for the 21st Century Drucker argued that a functioning society depends on institutions that foster responsible citizenship, provide meaningful work, and accept obligations beyond profit. Salesforce’s global initiatives illustrate this principle. Its Climate Action Plan, net-zero commitments, LGBTQ+ advocacy, and Pledge 1% expansion reinforce that corporations can be both market leaders and social institutions. Benioff sees business as a primary vehicle for delivering resources, talent, and problem-solving at scale to communities. Marc Benioff’s work at Salesforce is one of the clearest contemporary examples of Management as a Liberal Art. Through empathy, ethical reflection, institutional responsibility, and systemic awareness, Benioff has redefined 21st century management. Like Drucker, he views organizations as moral communities’ arenas for both performance and purpose. In an era of automation, widening inequality, and environmental crisis, Benioff believes that capitalism can be rehabilitated, but only if leaders understand management not as control, but as stewardship. The liberal art of management is not an outdated ideal; it is a living practice and essential for the legitimacy of business itself. References Benioff, M. (2019). Trailblazer: The power of business as the greatest platform for change. Currency. Drucker, P. F. (1946). The concept of the corporation. New York: The John Day Company. Drucker, P. F. (1989). The new realities: In government and politics, in economics and business, in society and world view. New York: Harper & Row. Drucker, P. F. (1990). Managing the non-profit organization. New York: HarperBusiness. Drucker, P. F. (1993). Post-capitalist society. New York: HarperBusiness. Drucker, P. F. (1999). Management challenges for the 21st century. New York: HarperBusiness. Salesforce. (2021). Philanthropy and the 1-1-1 model. https://www.salesforce.com/company/philanthropy/
