A reaction to guru of gurus

Abstract

This essay reacts to Teo-Dixon and Monin's logological analysis of guru of gurus Peter Drucker's work, emphasizing five texts from 1955-2002. Their analysis focuses on how much Drucker differentiated between leaders (leadership) and managers (management) in his earlier and later writings and the degree to which leadership moved toward becoming a "god term," argued to be the ultimate for a concept. The current author then analyzes what other literature tells us and provides a summary comparison between Teo-Dixon and Monin's logological analysis of Drucker and his own analysis (nonlogological) of the other literature. He concludes from the comparison that Drucker has tended to move away from managers and leaders being the same, though not entirely; and in the other literature has found an increasing number of instances where they are the same, and more and more instances where they are not. Also, leadership and sometimes management are moving toward being a god or at least superman term. © 2007 Sage Publications.