An executive in business must have the qualities of a political statesman. A mere "politician" plays the old game in the way he has been taught. He bas learned the ropes; he practises all the well-known tricks that will help bring his party and himself into power ; he supports new legislation because his party has indorsed it or because he fears the party whip. The statesman, on the other hand, is superior to his party. He creates new issues demanding legislation. He makes new parties and remakes the old.
We find these two types of men at work in the field of business. First, we have the imitator—the man who knows all the tricks of his trade, who has learned by experience the accepted methods of doing busi ness, who often makes money because he works hard, makes many friends and accumulates valuable good will. Such a man must possess a certain amount of executive ability, but he is not a great executive. He is not a business statesman.
The business statesman is not content to imitate. His mind and ambition drive him onward to larger things and greater efficiency. He created the depart ment store ; he combined numerous small railways into great transportation systems ; he saw the business pos sibilities latent in the post office and developed a great mail-order business; he saw the wastes involved in old fashioned methods and boldly struck out on lines of greater efficiency ; he saw the possibility of lower costs in large-scale production and distribution, and organ ized the so-called trusts. The executive is, above all things, an originator ; others follow him like sheep.
But the executive must do more than originate. He must be able not merely to plan but to drive his plans thru to successful execution. He must be able, therefore, to make others do his will. He must pick men who will understand his purpose and he must know that his instructions are obeyed. The great executive combines in a high degree the qualities of the dreamer and of the practical man. He is what the economists call the "entrepreneur," or enterpriser.
3. Delegated responsibility of the proprietor of a small business, whether a country store or a box sbop employing only a few hands, can carry alone all his executive responsibilities. His business is all within the sweep of his eye, and his problems are not numerous. The only assistants he needs are
clerks or workmen.
If he has in him the qualities of the real executive, however, his business will not always remain small, and the time will come when he will gladly delegate to others some of his responsibilities as executive. He may need a manager of sales or of purchasing, or a man whose special duty shall be the hiring of employes and the supervision of their work. If he is a good executive he will pick the right men for these positions and have the satisfaction of seeing his business grow, with every detail properly attended to, even as it would be if he himself could be a hundred men in a hundred different places at the same time. Upon the shoulders of each of the sub-executives he will have laid part of his own burden.
A man who cannot thus develop and enlarge his business without increasing the weight upon his own shoulders, lacks certain qualities essential to great success. It may be that he is merely a poor judge of men, or that he cannot believe a thing rightly done un less he does it himself, or that he does not understand the principles and the importance of organization. Thus it happens that under modern conditions, most great business enterprises being conducted by corpora tions of very large capital, many men of great execu tive ability are employed in subordinate positions. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company utilizes the services of many men whose value lies in their execu tive quality. All of them, in greater or lesser degree, are planning for the welfare of the corporation and are skilfully directing the work of men under them in order that their plans may be successfully executed.
The work of these sub-executives in any business is so important that they furnish to some extent a prac tical test of a chief executive's ability. It has often been said of the head of this or that great corpora tion: "He never seems in a hurry, he always has time to talk with you." The reason why such men do not seem rushed with work is that they have built up a perfect organization and know that everything is be ing done in the way it ought to be done. They have earned the right to play golf as many afternoons a week as they wish to.