THE EXECUTIVE 1. Three classes of men.—Plato divided the people of his ideal republic into three classes : The philos ophers who did the thinking and ruling; their lieuten ants, who executed orders; and fmallyt the great mass of the people, most of them slaves.
The French essayist, Montesquieu, also divided mankind into three classes : First, those who are able to think, to give the world new ideas; second, men who cam—io7(7.ro-Yrivna who can unde=d tlieTleas of the first class; third, men who can neither think nor understand the thinking done by others. Unhappily the majority of men belong in the third class.
Nietzsche, a German philosopher, drew the line very sharply between the three different classes of men. The first group be deemed the supermen; they were superior to the masses of men and could not be held subject to laws made for the common people; the su perman obeyed only the law which he himself made. Nietzsche's second class of men consisted of those in telligent enough to understand and execute the will of the first class. In his third class was the "common herd," who were of little more consequence on the earth than the lower forms of animal life ; they were naturally slaves.
If we were to accept these philosophers' views and were forced to believe that the walls between the classes are insurmountable, so that a human being born into one class can never climb into the one above, we should have a right to think this a very sorry world. Under such circumstances the great work of - the Alexander Hamilton Institute, and for that mat ter of all other educational institutions, would lose its most compelling motive, namely the development of the latent powers of men in order that they may rise to higher levels and lead more efficient lives. But we know that a man is not like a tree or a dog; by his own will he can escape from a narrow environment, and by his own will he can loosen the fetters inherited from an evil ancestry.
Nevertheless, the philosophers' classifications had a basis. We all lmow men who are natural leaders,
men whom others instinctively trust and obey; also men who make excellent lieutenants or assistants, but who need the guidance of a more masterful mind; also the millions who do no planning or directing and are able to perform only such tasks as they have mastered thru imitation and practice. In this and the two fol lowing chapters we shall discuss the characteristics of these different groups of men and briefly consider the kinds of work they do. For convenience we call the men of the highest class executives; those of the sec ond class sub-executives, or subordinate, or junior, offi cers; those of the third class, "rank-and-file workers." Every reader ought to k-now with which class he is now working and he should be trying to find out just what he ought to do in order to rise into a higher class. His advancement depends absolutely upon himself. No power on earth can take an ordinary "rank-and-file" worker and mold him into an executive. He alone can do it—if it can be done....
2. The executive a business few hundred years ago, when all shoes were made by band, the shoemaker who fitted the foot of his customer per fectly was a good workman. If be undertook to make more shoes than he could deliver on time, or if he was sometimes idle because his stock of leather was ex hausted, or if many of his customers found fault and refused to pay for their shoes, he was not a good busi ness man; for he lacked executive ability.
Here is a man who plans ; he knows in advance how much he will need of this or of that material ; he pre pares for every probable or possible contingency or emergency; if more work comes to him than he can do alone, lie ha-lows where he can get help and how much he can afford to pay for it ; be knows where be will market his goods and where he will get the money or credit to pay his bills when due. The man who is thus foresighted in the conduct of his affairs, no mat ter how small they are, is an executive.