Another Triumphant Conclusion to a Superbly Executed Week
You’re about to read one of the best blog posts we’ve ever done at the Drucker Exchange, a blog post that’s going to rank with the finest of our already excellent work.
According to Elizabeth Bernstein of The Wall Street Journal, this is increasingly how everyone talks. “Some people can’t seem to tell the difference between sharing positive information that others might actually want to know and flat-out crowing,” she writes. “Let me help: Bragging involves comparison, whether stated or implied.”
However, Bernstein says, the problem is unlikely to go away: “In a society of unrelenting competition—where reality-show contestants duke it out for the approval of aging celebrities and pastors have publicists—is it any wonder we market ourselves relentlessly?”
If we were to consult Peter Drucker, a confident but not a haughty man, he would say that “the proudest boast any executive can make” is to have “built the team that will perpetuate” one’s work, vision and institution. But that doesn’t mean Drucker advocated boasting. For the most part, he considered arrogance to be a danger to individuals and to businesses.
Image credit: LEOL30
Arrogance could take many forms. In Management Challenges for the 21stCentury, Drucker warned against “intellectual arrogance,” noting that “far too many people—especially people with great expertise in one area—are contemptuous of knowledge in other areas or believe that being bright is a substitute for knowledge.”
In Managing the Nonprofit Organization, Drucker warned of “righteous arrogance,” the sort that can cause innovators to be so “proud of their innovation that they are not willing to adapt it to reality.”
Drucker believed that arrogance was unavoidable in some circumstances. “If the need is for the ability to command in a perilous situation, one has to accept a [Benjamin] Disraeli or a Franklin D. Roosevelt and not worry too much about their lack of humility,” he averred in The Effective Executive.
But even in a commander, arrogance can quickly curdle into blindness and delusion. “The most charismatic American military leader was surely General Douglas MacArthur, and arguably the ablest one as well,” Drucker pointed out in The New Realities. “Yet in the end his charisma made him so arrogant that he brushed aside orders from President [Harry] Truman, his Commander-in-Chief, disregarded all the warnings of a Chinese counterattack in Korea and blundered into disastrous—and totally unnecessary—military defeat.”
Are arrogance and bragging on the rise—and should we worry about it? Why or why not?
32 
81
6 Comments
Jeffrey Smyth
August 17, 2012Rude and brash outpourings from Hollywoood, television and sports increasingly define our cultural standards. As Dizzy Dean said: “It ain’t bragging if you can do it.”
To Peter Drucker’s generation, a generation of gentlemen, boasting was a sin. Reticence was a characteristic to be admired, and particulalry in the succesful. Generally, braggards were considered to be louts.
Times have changed, More than ever today, management arrogance triumphs. B.S. baffles brains!The guy with the most money when he dies, wins.
Sad, really.
Arjun Chandrasekhar
August 18, 2012You name the fraud, scandal, bankruptcy, business dislocation etc., the root cause leading to all of this is, arrogance / leadership ego combined with greed. In this state of mind leaders loose control of their sense of judgment, ethics and morality. Arrogance can also surface to mask low self-esteem.
Maverick18
August 18, 2012Remembering the axis powers leadership of WW II, one can hardly say that arrogance is on the rise today. Correcting Drucker, the most charimatic American military leader was surely General George Washington, who was less arguably the ablest one as well. More notably, the founding fathers were incredibly arrogant to the point of dueling to resolve minor insults.
Mike Grayson
August 18, 2012Peter Drucker said, “We should be very wary of Charismatic leaders”. Hitler and Mao were charismatic leaders, and they destroyed their countries.
Yes, we should worry about someone who is arrogant and a braggard in a position of power. Their focus is on themselves, and their objectives most often don’t consider the greater good. They are self centered.
Is arrogance on the rise? Perhaps. But arrogance has been alive and well for a millenia. We would do well as a society to be sensitive to it.
Alba Patricia Valencia
August 18, 2012These adjectives mean characterized by an inflated ego and disdain for what one considers inferior. One who is arrogant is overbearingly proud and demands excessive power or consideration.
That has always existed in all confines: in military power, leaders, chains of command in business, in government, in the family…
Who profess egotism practiced a cult, worship and an excessive love of self. Self-centeredness is an exaltation of one’s personality, self-regarded as the center of attention of others: an arrogant and pompous professor, unpopular with students and colleagues alike.
“…what matters most, is how well you walk through the fire.”
Estos adjetivos significan la caracterización por un ego inflado y el desprecio por lo que se considera inferior. Aquel que es arrogante, es imperiosamente orgulloso y exige un poder excesivo o consideración.
Eso siempre ha existido en todos los confines: en el poder militar, lideres, cadenas de mando en las empresas, en el gobierno, en la familia…
Quien profesa la egolatría practica un culto, una adoración y un amor excesivo de sí mismo. El egocentrismo es una exaltación de la propia personalidad, auto-considerándose como centro de atención de los demás: un profesor arrogante y pomposo, por igual impopular entre los estudiantes y colegas.
“… lo más importante, es lo bien que la pases por el fuego”.
daniel pacheco
August 18, 2012How thick or thin is the line between self confidence to arrogance ? What is self confidence to one person is arrogance to another person. If I have a healthy self esteem and talk well of myself am I bragging ? As far as I am thinking “I have a healthy self esteem” but the other person may think I am bragging. Is self confidence and self esteem on the rise ? If yes then we need not worry about it because others who try to put us down call it bragging. There is a proverb in India which says that dogs bark at the elephant but the elephant ignores them and moves on. If people say we are bragging and arrogant we can treat them like dogs barking at the elephant and ignore them and move on towards our goal.