12th Global Peter Drucker Forum
Introduction to the Drucker Forum 2020
PROCLAIMING THE CENTURY OF LEADERSHIP
by Richard Straub
Peter Drucker, whose life spanned the twentieth century, labeled that time as the era of organizations and institutions. Ob-serving the dramatic rise of complex large-scale enterprises, he saw them as the new backbone of society and economy. As a consequence, he recognized the growing role of managers as fundamental to making these new legal, economic, social, and ultimately human constructs work. He also saw that when hospitals, education institutions, government bodies, and companies don’t perform, society at large does not function. Thus, he stressed the role of management as essential not only in business but in society. In this sense, management is a “social technology”—a robust set of tools to make human endeavor more productive.
