DAVID PACKARD: Universal Characteristics in His Leadership - How Do Leaders Lead?

 

“The world we have made, as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far, creates problems we cannot solve at the same level of thinking at which we created them.”

From Des MacHale (2002) Wisdom. 

This Albert Einstein quote came at the end of World War II.  A key challenge was facing leaders at that time.  Ideas such as nationalism, imperialism, and militarism – having contributed to two world wars – had the potential to lead to a third one, possibly threatening the survival of humankind.

Today, Albert Einstein’s quote is relevant because, despite a plethora of leadership theories, focused on how leaders lead, the largest number of corporate scandals in the history of American business marred the years 2001 and 2002.  In addition, a financial crisis emerged in 2007, which, in 2009, destroyed $34.4 trillion of the total market value of publicly traded companies—more than the combined 2008 annual gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States, the European Union, and Japan.  Were the annual real GDP of the United States, the European Union, and Japan to grow at mid-single digit rates, this destruction of wealth would take at least a decade to replenish.  In the United States, this lost wealth would take over 10 years to replenish, were GDP to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 5%.  Moreover, a November 13, 2013 Congressional Report stated that poverty in the United States increased markedly from 2007 through 2010.  In 2012, 46.5 million people were counted as poor in the United States—the largest recorded number in this measure’s 54-year history.

Examining how universal characteristics apply to effective leadership promises a level of thinking likely to uncover an answer to ways leaders lead effectively.  This conceptual research focuses on six of the eight universal characteristics of effective leadership the GLOBE project identified—integrity, decisiveness, a performance orientation, administrative competence, diplomacy, and a collaborative team orientation—without a link to charismatic leadership.

Vision and inspiration—the other two universal attributes of effective leadership the GLOBE project identified are linked to charismatic leadership.  Societies in such countries as Germany, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Iraq, and many of those in the former Soviet Union where charismatic dictators dominated view charismatic leadership as undesirable.  The distaste for charismatic leadership is likely the result of historic association with despotic charismatic leaders to whom these nations were subjected.

Conceptual research was conducted, using a digital version of David Packard’s autobiography, The HP Way, using the six universal characteristics of effective leadership the GLOBE project identified and their definitions (shown in Table 1) as key words to find evidence of these attributes in David Packard’s leadership.  Evidence in David Packard’s autobiography supports the presence of these characteristics.  The discussion below details this evidence.

Source Notes

…in 2009, destroyed $34.4 trillion of the total market value of publicly traded companies:  Liu, H. CK (2010, April 13). Global Post-Crisis Economic Outlook, Part 1:  The crisis of Wealth destruction. Asia Times. Retrieved from http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/LD13Dj05.html

…a November 13, 2013 Congressional Report:  Gabe, T. (2013). Poverty in the United States:  2012. Retrieved from http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33069.pdf

…a CNBC panel recognized:  Stake, R.E. (2006). Multiple Case Study Analysis. New York, New York: The Guilford Press The List: CNBC First 25 Rebels, Icons and Leaders (2014) [online forum]. Retrieved from  http://www.cnbc.com/id/101577066

…Vision and inspiration:  Dorfman, P.W., Gupta, V., Hanges, P.J., House, R.J., and Mansour, J. (Eds). (2004). Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 Societies. Thousand Oaks, California:  Sage Publications, Inc.


Excerpt from The Universal Characteristics in the Leadership of David Packard

Available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B081J7JDBH


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