Leadership and Uvalde A Case Study

Michael Cortrite PhD

PUBLISHED:

September 23, 2022


 Much analysis has been done of the mass shooting on 5/24/22 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. I will examine the incident from a leadership perspective. My experiences that might make my opinions worthwhile are:

  • Retired police officer, police supervisor and manager of 32 years 
  • Police trainer for the last 30 years 
  • UCLA graduate with a doctor of education in leadership degree 
  • Graduate school professor of leadership for the last thirteen years 
  • Peter F. Drucker researcher at the Management as a Liberal Art Research Institute (MLARI) at the California Institute of Advanced Management (CIAM), for the last 5 years 

 

There are four areas that would help explain the Uvalde law enforcement response to this incident. They are: 

  1. Basic police academy training 
  2. Fear 
  3. Bystander Effect, particularly Diffusion of Responsibility, and 
  4. Leadership and Autonomy 

I will weigh in on each of these, and I will save what I feel is the most important, a lack of autonomy, for last. 


 

BASIC POLICE ACADEMY TRAINING 

I graduated from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Academy in 1970 and I still train academy recruits at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance, where most police academies in California send their recruits for a day-long workshop on tolerance. The amount of knowledge the academy imparted on us recruits was impressive. However, my most vivid memory of the academy is that there was a strong focus on officer safety. We were told that out first priority was to go home to our families every night. A lot of the curriculum centered on police officer killings, including photographs of dead police officers. The purpose of this was obviously to reduce the number of police officers killed by scaring us into being more cautious. As far as I can tell from interacting with new recruits, this focus on officer safety is still in effect. It probably saves police officer lives, but, at least in my case, it made me less likely to put myself in danger. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I think recruits should be told that there may be times when officer safety comes in second to saving innocent victims’ lives. 

 

 On August 15, 2022, I spoke with a current police academy instructor from a large police academy. I asked if there was still a large focus on officer safety. The answer I got was “yes and no; the phrase, …first priority was to go home every night… is still used. However the academy also teaches active shooter protocols; that is, …at the scene of a mass shooting officers will advance into the site of any ongoing shooting and act to neutralize the shooter as quickly as possible.” The instructor I spoke to added that they know a police sergeant who does in-service training (training of veteran officers) who tells officers, “If your first priority is to go home at night, look for another job.” 

 

FEAR 

Police officers are human. They react to fear pretty much the same way everybody else does. What would you feel and what would you do if you were asked to confront someone who is armed with one of the deadliest weapons ever devised (commonly known as the AR15) and who has just killed numerous innocent people? Needless to say, the average person would quickly decline for fear of being killed. Police officers have very similar feelings. But police officers have a lot things going for them that should help mitigate their fear compared to the average citizen. Police officers usually have those same AR15-type weapons, training, almost unlimited backup, and hopefully a lot of experience. In case you were wondering, the bullet proof vest will not stop a bullet fired from an AR15-type rifle. 

Personally, I would think back to those lessons at the police academy that I have a responsibility to go home to my family after work. Theoretically, police officers don’t have the luxury of declining to go in after this crazed killer.  I’ll explain this later. 

 

BYSTANDER EFFECT/DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY 

And now a discussion of a very close cousin of fear— the bystander effect. 

The bystander effect refers to the well-documented fact that at any incident, event or scene where bad things are happening, the huge majority of people choose to be bystanders. They simply watch instead of doing something to help the people being victimized. In 1964 a young woman named Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York was murdered. She was coming home to her apartment and was stabbed numerous times with a knife. Even though the murder took place over several minutes just outside her apartment in view of her neighbors, no one did anything to try to stop the attack. In fact, it was later determined that 37 of her neighbors saw the attack and none of them even called the police. 

 

The Genovese case drew international attention and has been studied by social scientists in hundreds of experiments. A particularly powerful part of the bystander effect is diffusion of responsibility (Rentschler 2016), which has been defined as: 


When a person notices a situation and defines it as requiring 

assistance, he or she must then decide if the responsibility to help 

 falls on his or her shoulders… Diffusion of responsibility refers to 

 the fact that as the number of bystanders increases, the personal 

responsibility that an individual bystander feels decreases. As a 

consequence, so does his or her tendency to help  (Brittanica). 


In other words, “Why should I place myself in danger by doing something when some of these other people will probably do something.” Very shortly after the shooting at Robb Elementary School started there were dozens of police officers at the scene, including the Uvalde School District Chief of Police, Peter Arredondo. It looked like most of them were waiting and wishing someone would do something (Sanderson 2020). Albert Einstein said, “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing” (Einstein). And bystanders who are in positions of power (such as Chief Arredondo) are especially dangerous because other people look to them as models. Their lack of action encourages and gives permission to others to be bystanders. 

 

How many people at Robb Elementary looked at Arredondo and were emboldened to be bystanders? I would like to add another phrase to the end of Einstein’s quote; that is, “especially if they are a person in a position of power” (I use “person in a position of power” because according to Dr. Kotter of Harvard Business School, just because someone has a title doesn’t make them a leader. They have to earn the title of leader by their actions) (Kotter 2001). A leader and a bystander are two diametrically opposed positions. A leader is the opposite of a bystander (Cory and Cory 2021, Katz 2016). A leader, by definition, takes action. A bystander, by definition, stands by and watches. In the words of Peter Drucker, writing on the definition of leadership, “Wishing won’t make it so; doing will” (Drucker 1954, p.160). 

 

It’s important to note that in April 1999 at Columbine High School in Colorado a mass shooting occurred (15 people were killed). At that time police officers who arrived at the scene waited for the Special Weapons and Tactics team (SWAT) to assemble and come to the scene to deal with the shooters. In 1999 this was the police culture; that is, confronting mass shooters was the domain of specially trained SWAT teams. Since Columbine, police departments have acknowledged that not taking immediate action to neutralize the shooter at a mass shooting increases the likelihood that more people will die. Therefore, policies were universally enacted by police departments to change this culture/tactic; that is, the first officers at the scene of a mass shooting will advance into the site of any ongoing shooting and act to neutralize the shooter as quickly as possible (YOYO Response 2020). This is commonly called the Immediate Action Rapid Deployment (IARD) tactic (IARD 2022). 

 

This change in culture/tactics was huge. It made being a police officer even more dangerous. And keep in mind that, even a small cultural change is difficult and time consuming (Schein 2016). So, this recent (22 years ago) major change in police culture coupled with the bystander effect made it easier for police officers to consciously or sub-consciously succumb to their fears and do what we saw the first officers on the scene at Robb Elementary School do—basically nothing. I suspect that most of these officers looked around and thought something like, “With all these officers here, I’m sure someone is going to do something…soon.” 

 

LEADERSHIP AND AUTONOMY 

This brings us to leadership and autonomy which, I think, is the most important factor that would lead to better law enforcement responses to mass shootings. One of the earliest uses of autonomy in leadership is from Peter Drucker in his 1954 book, The Practice of Management. Drucker described a management strategy he named Management by Objectives (MBO). This strategy was radical for its time in that it suggested, among other things, that management should share responsibility with the employee for deciding how the employee should do their job. In other words, giving the employee autonomy. Today MBO is widely used in various forms (Staunstrub 2022). According to Exchange Leadership, MBO was being used by 79% of Fortune 1000 companies in 2008 (Curtin 2022, Sung et. al., 2022) and others have found that management by objectives positively affects employee engagement and meaningfulness. 

 

Perhaps the best description of leaders using autonomy to motivate employees is from Daniel Pink in his New York Times bestselling book, Drive (Pink 2009). Pink makes the case that one of the most effective ways to motivate people is by giving them as much autonomy as possible. People who get to make their own decisions as to how they are going to do their jobs, will do a much better job. They will be more engaged and prouder of their accomplishment.  Lao Tzu said, “Of the best of leaders, when the task is done, the people say, ‘We did it ourselves” (Heider 1997). Conversely, if people are told what to do and how to do it, they will probably comply, but they will not be committed and will only do the minimum required. 

 

 

A new study (Maran et al. 2022) concurs with Pink on the effect of autonomy on job engagement. They posit that employees, given a high degree of autonomy, are more engaged, higher performers, and better decision makers. When employees are given autonomy, once vision is set, they develop a clearer understand of their goals, and align their decisions with the organization’s vision and goals. And just getting to practice making decisions makes them better decision makers: “This granting autonomy acts as a vitamin for goal achievement” (p. 147). 

 

The Texas House of Representatives Investigative Report on the Robb Elementary Shooting report was published on July 17, 2022 (Texas House of Representatives Investigative Report on the Robb Elementary Shooting 2022). The report cites numerous failures and mistakes by numerous people. This paper will point out only the failures of leadership cited in the report. The report noted several high-ranking law enforcement personnel who exhibited a shocking lack of leadership.  It reported that among the first law enforcement people to arrive at Robb Elementary were Uvalde School District Chief of Police, Peter Arredondo; Uvalde Police Department Acting Chief of Police, Lt. Mariano Pargas; and Uvalde Police Department SWAT Commander, Staff Sgt. Canales. Lt. Pargas told the committee that he and Chief Arredondo never communicated with each other. Staff Sgt. Canales was one of three officers seen in surveillance video approaching the door to classroom 112, where the shooter was. When the shooter shot through the wall the three officers ran away. This was at 11:37 AM. It was 12:50 PM when a U.S. Border Patrol Tactical Team (BORTAC) made entry and confronted the shooter. As Staff Sgt. Canales was exiting the building he was heard to say, “we got to get in there” (p.58). He then helped other officers evacuating children from other classrooms. Cable News Network (CNN) aired a special on August 7, 2022, What Really Happened in Uvalde (CNN 2022). It showed Texas Governor Gregory Abbott at a news conference 24 hours after the shooting saying the law enforcement officers at Uvalde saved lives by running towards the gunfire. There was also video of Staff Sergeant Canales and two other officers running away from classroom 112 when the shooter shot through the wall. 

 

The report states that “The general consensus of witnesses interviewed by the Committee was that officers on the scene assumed that Chief Arredondo was in charge or that they could not tell that anyone was in charge of a scene described by several witnesses as chaos and a ‘cluster’.” 

 

INTERVIEW WITH CHIEF JACQUELINE SEABROOKS 

On 7/30/22 I interviewed retired police chief, Jacqueline Seabrooks. The police department she was chief of at the time had a mass shooting in 2013 (CNN 2013), that by all accounts, even though 5 people died, was a hugely successful law enforcement response. This shooting started at a residential house in the city and ended at the local community college. During her 37-year career Seabrooks was police chief of two different medium size Southern California police departments. She retired from the department where the mass shooting occurred and was chief of the other department for five years. Due to a disastrous law enforcement response to some civil unrest and mass looting in May 2020 (Los Angeles Magazine 2020) she was asked to return to that department where the mass shooting occurred as interim chief for a year.   

 

The questions I asked Seabrooks about her experiences of being the Chief of Police and having the ultimate responsibility for a successful law enforcement response to a mass shooting were: (1) What about your and your staff’s leadership helped make the response to this incident so successful? and (2) What did you learn about leadership from your involvement in this incident? 

 

 Seabrooks mentioned the nationally used Incident Command System (ICS) (ICS 2022) that was immediately put into place when the incident started. This system facilitated several organizations to seamlessly work together under a single command structure. Seabrooks cited an interaction she had with a captain from her department who, in accordance with the ICS system, had declared himself the Incident Commander. (She said that every member of her department is regularly and thoroughly trained in ICS.) She arrived at the incident command post and the captain asked her if she was assuming command. After getting a quick briefing on the situation, she replied, “Certainly not, carry on.” In other words, Seabrooks reinforced in this person that he had the autonomy to continue making decisions about the incident. She was telling him that she trusted him and his competence to do what was needed to successfully carry out their mission. She told me that the people carrying out the mission did not need her sticking her nose into everything. She said that leadership is giving her people what they need, staying out of their way, and being available if they have any questions. Seabrooks said that as a leader she believes that hiring the right people and then trusting them to effectively do their jobs makes for engaged and committed employees at all levels, who are not afraid to lead and make decisions. She said that it appeared that members of law enforcement in Uvalde were not talked about as leaders or told that everyone in an organization can and should be a leader. 

 

 For many years Seabrooks had been inviting the (much smaller) college police department to join the city police department in whatever training they were doing. This made for good relationships and cooperation between the two police departments. So, when it came down to having two city police officers and one college police officer being in the right place at the right time to engage the shooter, they quickly formed a team and neutralized the shooter, thereby saving uncountable lives. They didn’t need to ask for permission; they just did their job. Seabrooks said, “What they did was the opposite of just following orders.” Seabrooks also talked about complacency, the “It can’t happen here” attitude, and the idea that you don’t need a title to be a leader. She has always tried to send a message to employees that, in police work, mental preparedness is just as important as physical preparedness. And every employee should be mentally prepared to take charge of a scene at any time. As a police administrator she has had regular dialogues with subordinates about the fact that police officers are human and there are officers who might freeze up or not commit to putting their lives in jeopardy to save innocent citizens’ lives. These dialogues have the effect of reminding officers of their responsibilities, confronting themselves about these responsibilities, and keeping complacency in check. 

Seabrooks added that a very important part of leadership is also, to keep an eye on the police officers for the foreseeable future, who shot the suspect for symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Garrett 2006). 



 

 

CONCLUSIONS 

Historically, law enforcement agencies are conservative and hesitant to move away from command-and-control leadership and towards giving employees more autonomy. However, my experience is that they are slowly becoming more open to the more progressive styles of leadership. A leadership program that was started by the California Commission on Police Officer Standards and Training in 1989, the Sherman Block Supervisory Leadership Institute (SBSLI) is very progressive and has trained several thousand front line supervisors from every law enforcement agency in California. 

 

Maybe the Uvalde event is the impetus for law enforcement people in positions of power to start embracing empowerment; hiring and promoting the right people, giving guidance, goals, and vision, and encouraging officers to make as many decisions as possible. 

 

The first officers on the scene at Uvalde didn’t seem to think of themselves as leaders. If they did, they would have made the decision, without being told, to do something. In watching video on the incident, I would call many of these officers unengaged. The reality is that everyone, no matter their title or position, influences other people and is therefore a leader (Sanborn 2006). Everyone should be encouraged to practice being better leaders by honing and practicing their leadership skills. 

For current people in positions of power in law enforcement who are concerned about losing power or feeling unneeded, or “having the inmates run the asylum” Matthew Barzun, former ambassador to the United Kingdom and Sweden, has some advice. He makes a very convincing case that by giving employees more autonomy/power, you are saying to them, “I care for you, trust you, and want you to succeed.” This helps in building a trusting, caring relationship between employee and supervisor and therefore will result in more influence (personal power) and engagement for both employee and supervisor (Barzun 2021). 

 

Peter Arredondo, Uvalde School District Police Chief, was a bystander at the school. The Uvalde shooting might have turned out differently if Arredondo had realized that he was one of those law enforcement officers who would not commit to risking his life to save innocent people, so he should have just stayed away. The report, of course, points out that since the 1999 Columbine tragedy all police officers must be willing to risk their lives without hesitation. And at the Uvalde shooting police officers failed to adhere to their active shooter training. It is unknown if Uvalde police superiors regularly reinforced this training. The Uvalde School District Chief of Police, who was inside the school failed to assume command or to assign anyone else to take command. And, only after 77 minutes did anyone exercise leadership; at that time members of the U.S. Border Patrol Tactical Team entered the classroom where the shooter was. The report seems to place blame for the lack of leadership on all Uvalde law enforcement personnel. “The entirety of law enforcement and its training, preparation, and response shares systemic responsibility for the many missed opportunities on that tragic day” (p.7). 


RECOMMENDATIONS 

  • The bystander effect is real and needs to be a subject of regular training for all law enforcement personnel. 
  • Hiring and promotional testing should be about finding leaders, not charismatic people. Demagogues are charismatic. Leaders act with integrity. (Drucker 1964 p.159). The hiring and promotional processes should also take into account whether or not the potential candidates are sure that they can prioritize the lives of innocent citizens over their safety and the safety of their subordinates. 
  • Officer safety is not what it used to be. Police academies need to stress to recruits that starting in 1999 there was a major change in policing policy. Police officers now need to manage their fear and prioritize the lives of innocent citizens over their own safety. 
  • All members of law enforcement should take note that Uvalde law enforcement and the Uvalde School District was a victim of complacency (“It can’t happen here.”) Regular communication and dialogue are the best way to ensure that complacency will not take hold of your organization. 
  • It seems that when an organization is being examined or evaluated, the cliché, “poor communications” always seems to come up. The Uvalde shooting was clearly a case of disastrous communications or lack of communicating altogether, especially from people in positions of power. Every organization can use more practice/training in improving communication. 

 

References 


Anonymous, The YOYO Response, Police Vol.44 Iss.8 Aug. 2020 

 

Barzun, Matthew, The Power of Giving Power Away: How the Best Leaders Learn to Let Go. 

Penguin Random House, New York 2021 

 

Britannica, Diffusion of Responsibility 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/bystander-effect/Diffusion-of-responsibility 

 

Curtin, Joseph, Using Management by Objectives To Improve Performance,  

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255645533_Values- 

Exchange_LeadershipR_Using_Management_by_Objectives_Performance_Appraisals_t 

o_Improve_Performance 

 

Cory, David and Cory, Jill. Emotional Intelligence and the Bystander Effect: Being a Leader is the 

 Opposite of Being a Bystander. Webinar August 26, 2021 Emotional Intelligence  

Training Company. https://www.emotionalintelligence.ca/2021/08/emotional- 

intelligence-and-the-bystander-effect/ 

 

CNN, Cable News Network 2013  

 https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/09/justice/california-college-gunman 

 

CNN, Cable News Network 2022 

https://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2022/08/04/anderson-cooper-360-special-report-what-really-happened-in-uvalde/  

 

 

Drucker, Peter F., The Practice of Management. Harper & Row. New York 1954 

 

Einstein, Albert. https://philosiblog.com/2011/11/29/the-world-is-a-dangerous-place-to-live- 

not-because-of-the-people-who-are-evil-but-because-of-the-people-who-dont-do- 

anything-about-it/ 

 

Garrett, Ronnie. Don’t Cowboy Up: Healthy Agencies Help Officers Get Out of the Saddle and 

 Ride the Waves of Their Emotions to Keep Stress Disorders at Bay. Law Enforcement  

Technology Vol. 33, Issue 2, Feb. 2006 

 

Heider, John, The Tao of Leadership Humanics New Age, Atlanta 1997 

 

(IARD), Immediate Action Rapid Deployment Tactic Retriev 

https://www.police1.com/police-products/wmd-equipment/ppe/articles/immediate- 

action-rapid-deployment-new-rules-of-engagement-wbXig9LBrPJRnpQh/Page Break 

ICS100, Incident Command System 

 https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ICS100.pdf 

 

Katz, Jackson. The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help 

 Sourcebooks, Inc. Naperville 2006 

 

Kotter, John P. What Leaders Really Do. Harvard Business Review December 2001, 

 

Los Angeles Magazine, 2022 

https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/santa-monica-police-may-31/sions Into Results 

 

Maran, Thomas K.;Baldegger, Urs; Klosel, Kilian, Turning Vi: Unraveling the 

Distinctive Paths of Leading with Vision and Autonomy To Goal Achievement.   

Leadership and Organization Development Journal Vol. 34 No. 1 2022 

 

Pink, Daniel H, Drive: The surprising Truth About What motivates Us Penguin Group New Your 

2009 

 

Rentschler, Carrie Filmic, Witness To the 1964 Kitty Genovese Murder Urban History Vol. 43 Iss. 

4 2016 

 

Sanborn, Mark, You Don’t Need a Title to Be a Leader: how anyone, anywhere Can Make a 

Positive Difference. Waterbook Press, Colorado Springs 2006 

 

 

Sanderson, Catherine, The Bystander effect: The Psychology of Courage and Inaction William 

Collins Publication. London 2020 

 

Schein, Edgar and Schein, Peter, Organizational Leadership and Culture Jossey Bass. New York 

 2016 

 

Staunstrup, Per A., Management. By Objectives is Still Relevant, 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/management-objectives-still-relevant-per-aae-staunstrup/ 

 

Sung, Moon J.; Yoon, Dong-Yeol; Han, Caleb S., Does Job Autonomy Affect Job Engagement? 

Social Behavior and Personality journal Vol. 50 Iss. 5 (2022) 

 

Texas House of Representatives Investigative Committee on the Robb Elementary Shooting 

Report. 2022 

 https://house.texas.gov/_media/pdf/committees/reports/87interim/Robb-Elementary- 

Investigative-Committee-Report.pdf 

 

An Unflinching Gaze: Peter Drucker's Self-Portrait Through a Fallen World

By Bo Yang Ph.D. • January 31, 2026
Peter Drucker’s memoir, Adventures of a Bystander, is a self-portrait of a most unusual kind. It reveals its subject not through direct autobiography, but through a series of incisive portraits of the people he encountered throughout a tumultuous life. Drucker positions himself as a "bystander," but this is no passive observer. Instead, he is an intellectual portraitist whose careful study of others becomes the very method by which he comes to understand himself and the fractured world he inhabited. The book’s central drama is framed by a vivid scene from the summer of 1940. Karl Polanyi, a brilliant economic historian and refugee from the war engulfing Europe, was staying with the young Drucker and his family in Vermont. Tormented by the news of France's surrender and the bombing of London, Polanyi was consumed by an agonizing question: "Why did this European catastrophe happen?" Each morning, as soon as he heard Drucker's infant daughter stir in her crib, he would rush into her room and pour out his developing theories, testing his grand intellectual framework on the most innocent of listeners. This single image captures the profound urgency that animates the book. For both Polanyi and Drucker, understanding the collapse of European civilization was not an abstract academic exercise; it was an existential necessity. To explain his unique perspective, Drucker employs the metaphor of the "bystander" as the "fireman in the theater." In old European theaters, two firemen were required to be present for every performance. They did not participate in the play, yet their presence was integral to it. From their unique vantage point, they saw the stage differently than the actors or the audience. Drucker clarifies that this viewpoint is not a simple reflection of reality. As he puts it, this kind of "reflection is a prism rather than a mirror; it refracts." In observing the world, the bystander sees reality broken down into its constituent parts, and in that refraction, he inevitably sees himself. This analysis will follow Drucker’s prismatic gaze. We will first explore his diagnosis of a European elite intellectually trapped by the failed ideas of the 19th century. We will then examine the desperate search for an exit from this intellectual prison, as seen through his dialogues with other brilliant minds on the edge of the abyss. Finally, we will uncover the alternative vision Drucker discovered—not in a grand ideology, but in the pragmatic realities of American society and the nascent practice of management. 1 Trapped in the 19th Century: The Collapse of a Worldview To comprehend the rise of 20th-century totalitarianism, Peter Drucker believed one must first understand the intellectual and imaginative paralysis of the European elites who preceded it. His portraits of the men and women of his youth are not mere nostalgic sketches; they are forensic examinations of a worldview in collapse. The catastrophe that befell Europe, he argues, was not caused by a sudden invasion of barbarism, but by an internal failure—a vacuum created when the continent’s leading minds became prisoners of their own history, unable to see, let alone confront, the monstrous new reality taking shape before them. Drucker uses the haunting metaphor of a "sunken city of Atlantis" to describe the Vienna—and by extension, the Europe—of his youth. He recalls a childhood story of a city whose inhabitants, punished for their pride and greed, are forced to live as the undead, re-enacting their empty rituals in a world without sunlight. For Drucker, this was the state of the European elite. They were the living dead, trapped in the illusion of a "prewar" world, going through the motions of a life that no longer existed. This clinging to the past was, in his words, a "miasmic smog... paralyzing everybody," stifling all thought and imagination. The Paralysis of the Liberals The first and most prominent group of prisoners were the 19th-century liberals among whom Drucker was raised. His own father, a high-ranking government official, simply could not believe that Hitler would invade Austria or that another great war was possible. The editors at the prestigious journal The Austrian Economist, men of international perspective, dismissed 18-year-old Drucker’s warnings about the rising Nazi movement as "Nonsense," convinced that electoral politics had solved the problem. Most damningly, Drucker recounts an episode at the liberal-minded Frankfurt University. After a Nazi official delivered an ominous speech to the faculty, the university’s most celebrated professor—a brilliant scientist and archetypal liberal—was expected to offer a rebuttal. Instead, he stood up and asked only one question: "Could you please clarify... will the research budget for physiology be increased?"  For Drucker, the liberals' catastrophic failure was therefore not moral but imaginative—a cognitive paralysis rooted in their unwavering faith in a 19th-century framework that was utterly unequipped to recognize, let alone combat, a radically new form of political evil. They saw the Nazis as crude and vulgar, a temporary aberration that could be managed with the old tools, never imagining a world where their own cherished principles were no longer relevant. The Disillusionment of the Socialists If the liberals failed because they could not imagine a world beyond the 19th century, the socialists failed because their imagination was entirely a reaction against it, leaving them equally blind to the political realities of the 20th. They correctly diagnosed the deep flaws of the old order but were tragically naive in their proposed solutions. Drucker tells the story of Count Traun-Trauneck, a brilliant young aristocrat who placed his faith in an international workers' movement, believing the solidarity of the proletariat could transcend national borders and prevent the coming war. His hopes were brutally shattered when that very movement was consumed by a tidal wave of nationalism, as the "workers of the world" eagerly marched off to kill one another. The Count, his faith destroyed, retreated into obscurity, a broken man. Even more cautionary is the tale of Noel Brailsford, a British dissenter who journeyed from liberalism to socialism out of a deep compassion for the oppressed. Horrified by Nazism, Brailsford adopted the desperate logic of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," which led him to become an apologist for Stalin's Soviet Union. He knew of the atrocities, yet out of a desire to preserve a united front against fascism, he publicly defended the indefensible. Drucker saw in Brailsford a terrible paradox: a good man whose conscience led him to "condone evil." It was a lesson in how well-intentioned idealism, when detached from political reality, can become both morally compromised and politically naive. The Cul-de-Sac of Rationalism Drucker identified a deeper intellectual prison that held both liberals and socialists captive: "Rationalism." He was careful to distinguish this from reason itself. For Drucker, Rationalism is the arrogant impulse to force the mysterious, non-rational dimensions of human life into a single, quasi-scientific, all-encompassing explanatory system, mistaking the map for the territory. His prime example of this mindset is Sigmund Freud. In a masterful chapter, Drucker deconstructs three central "myths" about Freud: that he was impoverished, held back by anti-Semitism, and professionally neglected. In reality, Drucker argues, Freud was a quintessential "child of the Enlightenment." His great project was to take the dark, mysterious depths of the human psyche—the subconscious—and force them into a neat, rationalist framework. He promised a single key, sexual repression, that could unlock every human mystery. This quest for a perfect, totalizing explanation, Drucker argues, was the true intellectual disease of the 19th century. This rationalist obsession with a single, perfect system was the poison that contaminated the wells of European thought. It created an intellectual environment where even the most brilliant minds, in their search for an escape, would propose new, equally totalizing solutions—be it the perfect statesman, the perfect social design, or the perfect technology. 2. The Search for a Way Out: Dialogues on the Edge of an Abyss Drucker did not diagnose Europe's crisis from a detached, academic distance. His search for an answer was a lived experience, forged in intense dialogue with other thinkers who were also desperately seeking a path beyond the failed ideologies of the 19th century. In the portraits of his intellectual interlocutors—Fritz Kraemer, Karl Polanyi, Buckminster Fuller, and Marshall McLuhan—Drucker reveals a landscape of brilliant but ultimately flawed attempts to find an exit. The 'Third German' and Legitimate Power Fritz Kraemer was an eccentric political philosopher who provocatively advocated for monarchy, not out of nostalgia, but from a deeply held conviction that to resist the illegitimate, mob-driven power of Nazism, Germany needed a true conservatism grounded in legitimate authority and political virtue. He called for a "third German"—an "ideal Prussian"—to stand against both the corrupt "ugly German" of the establishment and the weak, ineffective "good German" of the liberal class. Drucker shared Kraemer's belief that the legitimacy of power was the central question of modern politics. Yet he ultimately diverged from Kraemer's solution, seeing it as too narrowly focused on the power of the state and overly reliant on the emergence of a "great man" to solve society's problems. The Perfect Society and the Embedded Market Drucker’s relationship with Karl Polanyi was one of the most formative of his life. Polanyi’s quest for an exit from the 19th-century trap was part of a larger family drama; each of his four siblings also pursued a radical alternative, from fascism and engineering a new society in Brazil to rural sociology and philosophical personalism, illustrating the sheer desperation of the search. Karl’s path was economic history. In his masterwork, The Great Transformation, he argued that the worship of a utopian "free market" was the root of social decay and proposed a "third way" in which the market would be "embedded" within social principles. Drucker, however, saw in Polanyi’s quest another form of the 19th-century impulse for "salvation by society." Polanyi’s own historical research became a source of disillusionment; he discovered that the pre-market societies he idealized were often built on slavery and coercion. Their fundamental difference was captured in Polanyi’s friendly dismissal of Drucker’s emerging philosophy as a "tepid compromise." Polanyi was searching for the perfect society; Drucker was beginning to formulate a vision for a tolerable one. The American Prophets and the Gospel of Technology After moving to America, Drucker encountered two thinkers who offered a completely different exit: technology. He called Buckminster Fuller and Marshall McLuhan true "prophets" because they understood that technology was not merely a set of tools but a new, formative reality. Fuller preached a technological "pantheism," seeing it as divine harmony, while McLuhan famously viewed it as an "extension of man," altering human perception itself. Drucker recognized their genius but warned against idolizing technology as a new "Golden Calf." To understand their difference from Drucker, one might imagine technology as a lamp. Fuller was concerned with whether the lamp's light aligned with the cosmic order of the stars. McLuhan was fascinated by how the lamp's light fundamentally altered our eyesight and perception of the world. Drucker, however, insisted on asking: Who is holding the lamp? What is the human 'work' of carrying it? And what social responsibilities does that act entail? For Drucker, these brilliant searches—for the perfect statesman, the perfect society, or the perfect technology—all pointed to a deeper modern pathology. The quest for "salvation by society," he concluded, had turned society itself into an idol. "Society" had become the "Great Baal and Moloch of modern man," a false god to which people were willing to sacrifice themselves and others in the pursuit of a worldly paradise. This deification of the social, he believed, was the ultimate source of totalitarian temptation. His own path, therefore, would require not a new system, but a new humility. 3. The American Alternative: Society, Politics, and Management Drucker’s escape from the European intellectual labyrinth was not just theoretical; it was geographical and experiential. In the United States, he discovered a society that, while deeply flawed, offered a living, breathing alternative to the rigid and failed ideologies of Europe. It was not a perfect society, but a functioning one, and in its functioning, he found the raw materials for a new political and social vision. An Imperfect but Resilient Society Drucker was struck by the profound difference in how Americans and Europeans responded to the Great Depression. In Europe, the economic collapse bred "suspicion, surliness, fear, and envy," tearing the social fabric apart. In America, he observed, the Depression was largely viewed as a "natural disaster." This perception fostered solidarity; the community "closed ranks" rather than dissolving into class warfare. He identified a key source of this resilience in what he termed American "Tribalism." Contrary to Marxist predictions, the crisis did not produce a unified "proletariat." Instead, Americans fell back on their diverse religious and ethnic communities. Drucker acknowledged the dark side of this phenomenon, distinguishing between "discrimination against" others and "discrimination for" one's own group. Yet he argued that this flawed mechanism provided a powerful source of social cohesion that prevented total social collapse. This mosaic of particular communities was held together by an overarching "American Creed"—a set of abstract principles to which anyone could swear allegiance. A Politics of Pragmatism, Not Perfection This unique social structure was mirrored in what Drucker called "America's political genius": a rejection of the European obsession with ideological perfection. The core of this tradition was a concept he called "dualism": a refusal to separate the material from the ideal. For Americans, politics was neither a dirty game of power (Machiavelli) nor the deification of the state (Hegel). Instead, it was a moral and creative act of making "matter serve spirit"—using imperfect institutions to strive for ethical ends. This pragmatic approach, Drucker saw, reflected a kind of "pre-modern," community-based wisdom that Europe, in its obsession with grand "isms," had lost. The fierce debate between individualism and collectivism, for example, was resolved through a vibrant tradition of "voluntary group action," where citizens organized from the bottom up to solve problems. This focus on concrete, community-based action over abstract theory was the political equivalent of the practical wisdom he admired in the "pre-modern" figures of his youth. The Organization as the Locus of Freedom Drucker's political philosophy found its ultimate practical application in an unlikely place: the modern business corporation. A two-year study of General Motors in the 1940s crystallized his thinking. He found himself in a debate with GM's legendary chairman, Alfred Sloan, who held that a corporation's only responsibility was economic performance. Drucker argued for a broader vision: in a world where traditional communities were dissolving, the large corporation had become the central social institution. As such, it had to provide workers with the social status and function that the old order no longer could. He found an unexpected ally in GM's president, Charles E. Wilson, a self-proclaimed "socialist." Wilson championed two groundbreaking ideas: the employee pension fund, which Drucker predicted would make workers the owners of American industry, and the "self-governing plant community," a direct response to Drucker's call for granting workers more autonomy. From these observations, Drucker forged his most groundbreaking insight. Tyranny thrives in a vacuum of social status and function. The well-managed organization, therefore, is not just an economic entity; it is the primary non-governmental institution capable of providing individuals with the status, function, and community that prevent the alienation on which totalitarianism feeds. Management, understood correctly, was the concrete "alternative to tyranny." 4. The Enduring Mystery of the Person After a lifetime spent analyzing the grand ideologies that defined the 20th century, Peter Drucker’s ultimate answer to its crises lay not in a new system, but in a return to the irreducible and mysterious nature of the human person. The ideologies had failed because they were abstractions; they forgot the messy, contradictory reality of individual human beings. The way out was to recover a form of wisdom that looked unflinchingly at people as they are. The "Pre-Modern" Wisdom Drucker found this wisdom embodied not in great theorists, but in "pre-modern" figures. His grandmother dismissed complex economic theories with a simple analogy: a ruler cannot change its length and then claim people have grown taller. Confronted by a Nazi, she didn't argue ideology; she poked him with her umbrella and told him his swastika was as impolite as a pimple on his face—and he sheepishly removed it. Similarly, the dynamic salon hostess Genia Schwarzwald had a profound disdain for all "isms." Her passion was for solving concrete problems. As Drucker notes, her famous salon was not just a hub of intellectual life, but a compassionate "counter-world" she created as a refuge for the "old-time liberals" and other elites who felt trapped in the "sunken city" of a collapsing Europe. When a massive strike loomed, she forcefully intervened, knocking heads together. When accused of forcing both sides to betray their principles, she delivered a line that summarized her entire philosophy: "I have no use for principles which demand human sacrifice." Lessons from the "Men of Action" Drucker found further proof of this principle in the practical wisdom of the bankers and businessmen he met. The banker Ernest Freedberg insisted that any system must be "'foolproof,' because work is ultimately done by fools." The retail magnate Henry Bernheim taught him that "There are no irrational customers, only lazy merchants." Their insights were a constant reminder that effective action comes from observing people's actual behavior, not from imposing abstract models upon them. Drucker's Ultimate Insight Drucker’s entire intellectual journey was a movement toward this fundamental truth. As a young man, he had a startling religious insight: "The opposite of Sin... is not Virtue; it is Faith." Years later, while sitting in John Maynard Keynes's legendary economics seminar, he had a professional epiphany, realizing that everyone else in the room, including Keynes himself, was interested "in the behavior of commodities," whereas he was interested "in the behavior of people." This focus on the human person in all their complexity led him to his most profound conclusions. He came to see the problem of slavery in America not as a mere political mistake, but as a "sin"—a deep moral and spiritual wound that could only be healed by repentance and redemption. He was shaken to his core when a Black theologian argued that true freedom for Black Americans required confronting not only the sin of white oppression but also the "guilt and mystery" of their own African ancestors' role in the slave trade. For Peter Drucker, the bystander who had witnessed the collapse of a world, the most profound social and political problems were, at their root, moral and spiritual problems of the human heart. To escape the prisons of ideology, one must have the courage to set aside the quest for perfect systems and turn instead to the difficult, humbling, and ultimately liberating task of looking unflinchingly at the full, mysterious, and often contradictory nature of the person.

On Decisions and their “Agents”

By Richard Johnson Ph.D. • December 17, 2025
This essay was inspired by an article recently published by Karen Linkletter and Pooya Tabesh (2025). They were in search of the meaning of “decision” in the works of Peter Drucker. To this end, they used Python to identify and locate all the times the word, “decision”, came up in Peter Drucker’s oeuvre . They then characterized the contexts (“themes”) in which the word came up. The result was a nuanced but very clear characterization of the evolution of his thinking on the topic. Here, we will focus on a key theme for Drucker: the case where your decisions involve other people’s decisions and actions . For present purposes, we can start with their statement: One of Drucker’s valuable contributions to the literature on decision-making is his adamance that implementation be built into the decision-making process.” (Linkletter and Tabesh 2025 8) To be clear, “…it is not a surprise that his integration of implementation of and commitment to decisions is part of his process of decision-making. He argues that a decision “has not been made until it has been realized in action.” (2025 8) The question, therefore, is how to make this happen, how to turn an organization from an aggregate of individuals whose decisions may or may not be aligned, into an agent—an entity that makes decisions, implements them, and then ascertains that what was done was, in fact, what was decided, as we try to do when making purely individual decisions. Let’s look at the matter more closely… A few years ago, I read a story about a road crew that was painting a double-yellow line on a highway. In their path was a dead raccoon that had been hit by a car or truck. It was lying right in the middle of the road. The crew didn’t stop. Someone later took a picture of the dead raccoon with a double-yellow line freshly painted right over it. The picture is below. It went viral on the Internet.

Paul Polman: Management, Sustainability, and Stewardship as a Liberal Art

By Robert Kirkland Ph.D. • December 17, 2025
When Paul Polman became CEO of Unilever in 2009, he did not inherit a troubled company. He stepped into a large global enterprise with familiar consumer brands that sat on shelves in cities from Amsterdam to Manila. Even with that scale and reach, the business rested on foundations that were beginning to crack. Public faith in multinational firms was fading, climate change was moving from a distant worry to a financial reality, and investors were increasingly locked into the rhythm of quarterly results that encouraged short term decisions and discouraged real strategy. Polman’s answer was surprisingly philosophical for a leader of such a company. Rather than defend profitability as the central corporate purpose, he attempted to redefine what the company was for. His response may suggest a contemporary expression of Peter Drucker’s idea of Management as a Liberal Art. Drucker described management as a moral undertaking that must be anchored in judgment, responsibility, and service, not only in efficiency or cost control. Redefining Corporate Purpose Soon after taking the role, Polman stunned many investors by ending quarterly earnings guidance. He went further and encouraged investors who focused only on short term returns to place their money elsewhere (Polman and Winston, 2021). The gesture appears to have been meant to reset the company’s relationship with financial markets. Drucker consistently argued that true leadership cannot be tied to the emotional fluctuations of short term financial reporting. By refusing to follow the ninety day cycle, Polman gave Unilever enough breathing space to think about long term issues. He also sent a powerful message inside the company. Unilever would no longer place shareholder extraction above every other consideration. Drucker might say that Polman was returning management to a place where purpose and meaning had priority. Drucker had long argued that institutions must be run for durability and social legitimacy, not just for quarterly outcomes (Drucker, 1946). The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan In 2010, Polman introduced the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, which attempted to grow the company while reducing its environmental footprint (Unilever, 2010). The plan contained measurable goals for carbon emissions, water use, waste, sustainable sourcing, health, hygiene, nutrition, and economic livelihoods in the supply chain (Unilever, 2018). This was not presented as charity. It was presented as the business model itself. This approach fits well with Drucker’s view that a company must justify its existence through contributions to the common good (Drucker, 1946). Polman noted that a company serving billions of consumers could not thrive in a world marked by climate disruption, fragile supply chains, and social instability (Polman and Winston, 2021). He reframed sustainability as a competitive requirement. There are many examples of how this mindset influenced operations, such as targeted efforts to stabilize incomes for small farming communities or reduce water dependency in detergent production. Drucker would likely describe this approach as a return to institutional citizenship, which is the idea that power involves obligation (Drucker, 1989 and 1993). Human Dignity in Management Drucker believed that effective management is inseparable from human dignity. He argued that organizations must offer people both identity and contribution (Drucker, 1946). Polman appeared to take this to heart. Under his leadership, Unilever pushed for higher wages, safer working conditions, and expanded training programs across its vast networks of suppliers and small scale producers (Unilever, 2018). He also shifted language in a revealing way. Polman preferred speaking about farmers and families rather than vendors and suppliers (Polman and Winston, 2021). This change hinted at a deeper moral view of business. It positioned Unilever as a partner invested in the stability of the people who provided its raw materials. That reading fits closely with the idea of management as a liberal art, which sees leadership as an act of stewardship for the growth of people, not just the supervision of tasks (Drucker, 1989). Climate Leadership and Ethical Risk Management Drucker warned that management cannot be reduced to engineering efficiency. Managing also requires wrestling with consequences (Drucker, 1990). Polman pressed Unilever to treat climate risk as a direct business issue. He connected environmental damage to cost volatility, to consumer trust, and to the company’s long term future. Under his leadership, Unilever accelerated its use of renewable energy, sustainable materials, lighter packaging, and lower water use in many products (Unilever, 2010 and 2018). Polman’s climate agenda blended science, logistics, ethics, psychology, and an understanding of global politics. Drucker described this type of synthesis as central to Management as a Liberal Art. Responsible executives, he argued, must integrate many forms of knowledge into decisions (Drucker, 1989 and 1993). Polman framed sustainability as fiduciary responsibility rather than philanthropy. His influence is still visible in the way many global firms now treat environmental commitments as strategy rather than charity. This framing closely reflects Drucker’s view that corporate social responsibility must be rooted in a firm’s core mission, capabilities, and day-to-day operations rather than treated as a separate act of goodwill. By embedding sustainability into Unilever’s strategy and value chain, Polman demonstrated Drucker’s argument that responsible management integrates social obligations into how the business competes and performs, allowing ethical action and profitability to reinforce rather than undermine one another. Reviving Stakeholder Capitalism Polman helped restore credibility to the idea of stakeholder capitalism. He insisted that corporations must serve employees, consumers, suppliers, communities, and the environment rather than focus only on investor returns (Polman and Winston, 2021). He also pushed Unilever to evaluate brand performance partly through its social or health impact (Unilever, 2018). Under this model, brand equity included moral equity. This aligns with Drucker’s view that corporate legitimacy must be earned and never assumed (Drucker, 1989). For Polman, consumer trust was a survival requirement. When customers believe that a firm contributes to a worsening world, the company risks losing not just reputation but also the permission to operate (Drucker, 1990). Moral Leadership and Institutional Courage Polman spoke in moral terms more openly than most executives. He frequently challenged governments that fell short on climate commitments and he encouraged other business leaders to adopt fair labor standards and responsible tax behavior (Polman and Winston, 2021). Drucker argued that real authority is moral before it is positional. Polman’s conduct fits that idea well (Drucker, 1989 and 1990).  Inside the company, Polman asked employees to see themselves as contributors to social improvement and not merely as managers of brands or operations (Unilever, 2010). This practice reflects MLA. Drucker believed that people should find meaning and contribution through their work, not only wages (Drucker, 1989). Performance, Profit, and Purpose Some critics argue that purpose oriented leadership reduces profitability. Polman countered this by pointing to performance. During his tenure, Unilever posted steady growth, especially in emerging markets, improved margins, and delivered strong long term returns (Unilever, 2018). He argued that long term value and social value reinforce one another (Polman and Winston, 2021). Drucker had long dismissed the idea that ethical leadership conflicts with economic effectiveness (Drucker, 1999). Even with strong performance, tension remained. Certain investors disliked the refusal to play the quarterly guidance game. Some environmental advocates believed Unilever could have moved faster on issues such as plastics. Drucker never said that Management as a Liberal Art would eliminate conflict. He said that it would give leaders a moral compass for navigating conflict in a transparent way (Drucker, 1989). Polman seemed to follow that guidance by making tradeoffs visible and by emphasizing choices that protected dignity, stability, and ecological viability (Drucker, 1990). Building a Network of Responsible Institutions After leaving Unilever, Polman co founded Imagine, an organization that works with senior executives to accelerate progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Polman and Winston, 2021). This next step reinforces the idea that sustainability for Polman is a theory of governance rather than a branding strategy. Drucker believed that modern society relies on networks of responsible institutions. These include corporations, governments, and nonprofit organizations that understand their interdependence and act accordingly (Drucker, 1946 and 1993). Polman’s post CEO work attempts to strengthen that network. He is essentially trying to rebuild the trust and cooperation among institutions that Drucker warned could erode in a fragmented society (Drucker, 1999). The Legacy of a Modern Druckerian Paul Polman’s leadership at Unilever provides one of the clearest contemporary examples of Drucker’s idea of Management as a Liberal Art. He treated the corporation as a civic institution rather than a simple profit generator. He wove climate stability, labor dignity, and social inclusion into the core of strategic planning. He asked brands to earn moral legitimacy. He emphasized supply chains as human communities. He took personal risks by arguing that corporations hold responsibility for the future of the planet on which their operations depend (Polman and Winston, 2021). In Drucker’s language, Polman practiced stewardship. He demonstrated that management concerns human beings, the communities they inhabit, and the ecological systems that support them (Drucker, 1989 and 1990). In an era shaped by climate upheaval, inequality, and declining institutional trust, Polman shifted the central question. Instead of asking whether companies can afford to care, he asked whether they can survive if they refuse to care at all. References 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: Practices and principles. 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. Polman, P., & Winston, A. (2021). Net Positive: How courageous companies thrive by giving more than they take. Harvard Business Review Press. Unilever. (2010). Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. Unilever PLC. Unilever. (2018). Sustainable sourcing and livelihoods progress report. Unilever PLC. World Business Council for Sustainable Development. (2019). Business leadership for a net-zero economy.
Show More