APPENDIX

General Douglas MacArthur’s Principles of Leadership

When I first became a manager in 1988, I knew nothing about management, so I read everything about the subject I could find. Many of the books were long and didn’t feel as practical as I needed, but there was one message that made a lasting impression. It was a one-page appendix at the back of a textbook I no longer recall. The page was titled “General Douglas MacArthur’s Principles of Leadership.” They consisted of seventeen brief bullet points.

While the language of his leadership principles was perhaps a little old-fashioned and military-flavored and reflected the gender orientation of the time, there was something in their simplicity and moral clarity that felt right to me. They were more useful from a people-management standpoint than anything else I could find. So I made a copy of that page and kept it in my desk drawer, referring to it often in those early days for guidance and direction.

Over the next quarter century I changed office locations many times, and as I gradually grew more comfortable in the role of management, I didn’t refer to the page as often and at some point misplaced it and forgot about it.

As I was getting ready to retire from the corporate world in 2012, I was cleaning out old files when I came across that misplaced, much-handled, now yellowed piece of paper. Rereading it, I felt it was as meaningful as I’d remembered, as fundamentally valuable for managers at Google or Facebook or Alibaba, say, as for officers at West Point. The principles are:

• Do I heckle my subordinates or strengthen and encourage them?
• Do I use moral courage in getting rid of subordinates who have proven themselves beyond doubt to be unfit?
• Have I done all in my power by encouragement, incentive, and spur to salvage the weak and erring?
• Do I know by NAME and CHARACTER a maximum number of subordinates for whom I am responsible? Do I know them intimately?
• Am I thoroughly familiar with the technique, necessities, objectives, and administration of my job?
• Do I lose my temper at individuals?
• Do I act in such a way as to make my subordinates WANT to follow me?
• Do I delegate tasks that should be mine?
• Do I arrogate everything to myself and delegate nothing?
• Do I develop my subordinates by placing on each one as much responsibility as he can stand?
• Am I interested in the personal welfare of each of my subordinates, as if he were a member of my family?
• Have I the calmness of voice and manner to inspire confidence, or am I inclined to irascibility and excitability?
• Am I a constant example to my subordinates in character, dress, deportment, and courtesy?
• Am I inclined to be nice to my superiors and mean to my subordinates?
• Is my door open to my subordinates?
• Do I think more of POSITION than JOB?
• Do I correct a subordinate in the presence of others?

A biographer of General MacArthur, William Addleman Ganoe, working with General Jacob Devers, developed this list. It reflected the leadership qualities they observed in MacArthur over decades. Ganoe believed the principles had universal value. “I found all those who had no trouble from their charges,” he wrote, “from General Sun Tzu in China to George Eastman of Kodak fame, followed the same pattern almost to the letter.”

From Type A Behavior and Your Heart

By Meyer Friedman, MD, and Ray H. Rosenman, MD

While this passage, written in 1974, was not specifically directed at the management environment, it could well have been. As the title states, individuals can indeed change Type A behavior, if there is a desire to do so.

You Can Change Your Behavior Pattern

A number of physicians have gloomily generalized to us that “once a Type A person, always a Type A person.” But this need not be so, as these doctors would easily discover if they studied the waning intensity of Type A behavior in certain of their own patients after they had survived a very severe myocardial infarction. These survivors may shed many of their Type A traits. For example, they no longer appear to be harried by their former sense of time urgency. They no longer hurry the speech of others, nor flagellate themselves attempting to think about or to perform two or more things simultaneously; no longer do they fret if they must wait in line for service, or for a delayed plane departure, or for an automobile, in front of their own, that may be moving too slowly for their taste; and no longer do they estimate life and its enjoyment in terms of acquired “numbers.”

Having ventured so very close to the “other country” where there is neither time nor numbers, these survivors demonstrate an awareness of the only truly important “number” in their life, namely, the one indicating the number of days that have been allotted to them to remain on this planet.

How High-Performing Companies Motivate Their People

One of the best and simplest ways to validate sound management practices is to study closely what high-performing companies do. Toward this end, a recent study by Towers Watson, a global benefits consulting firm, showed that following basic principles of sound management—treating employees well, offering attractive long-term career opportunities, providing highly respected leadership—indeed paid off in strong performance.

The study, “Tracking People Priorities and Trends in High-Performance Companies,” examined trends in employee opinions over a five-year period. The research identified a high-performing group of companies, which cut across industry sectors, comprised of twenty-six organizations that outperformed peers in “financial performance” and “employee opinion scores.” The study showed that four specific areas above all others contributed to these organizations’ success:

Career development. Nothing kills the motivation of talented individuals like lack of career development opportunities. Employees in these high-performing companies were satisfied with the “emphasis on valuing and fostering talent, and the availability of long-term career opportunities and training.” Note the emphasis on long term. In a business environment where long-term loyalty and opportunities are often in increasingly short supply, it’s no surprise this quality resonates.

Empowerment. High-performing organizations excel in providing “open, supportive cultures that encourage new ideas and empower staff.” They received high scores on measures such as “Most of the time it is safe to speak up in this company.” Indeed, tolerance of respectfully and professionally expressed differences of opinion is a key element of a healthy corporate culture.

Rewards and recognition. Employees at these high performers were “increasingly satisfied” with compensation, benefits, and non-monetary recognition. The organizations were seen as generally showing appreciation for contributions when appropriate. Not at all surprisingly, a sentiment that scored well in these organizations was the phrase “My supervisor values my contributions.”

Leadership. Employees in this high-performing group were satisfied with senior leaders’ ability to “communicate down the line” to everyone, as well as to make decisions “consistent with company values.” It was seen as critical for leaders to “walk the talk, not talk the walk.” As we’ve discussed at length earlier, leaders will always benefit from leading by example.

There’s nothing shocking about these results. Regardless of whether one is a Type A or Type B manager, you’ll never go wrong by focusing on developing your employees, building a constructive culture, rewarding those who deserve it, and behaving in a manner that earns admiration.

But just because something is common sense doesn’t mean it’s commonly practiced. This study demonstrates that a highly motivated workforce is a valuable financial asset. It’s a data-driven reminder that fundamentally sound management practices never go out of style. Because they work.