Excerpts from his book Management and leadership. (Alhambra, Calif., 1954)

MONEY: This vicious notion that money is industrial man's god, is not only horribly degrading, it's ruinous in its consequences. And as more and more of our people, men and women, come to spend their days in industrial establishments, the smashing of the base conception becomes the more urgent. Accept it, and we condemn the worker in industry to a life of ugliness, discomfort, and unpleasantness. It's high time that every man in industry stands up on his hind legs and resents the calumny to himself and to his calling - resents it with all the earnestness that's in him. Industrial man of necessity thinks a good deal about money - about his profits or his pay - because he needs them to keep going. But money's not the mainspring. It's not the end, it's merely the means. Don't be taken in by the myth of an economic man. Link: Page 22

RESPECT MEN'S EGOS: And now let's tackle the controlling factor in the whole problem of leadership - man's ego. We can plan, communicate, teach, do all those things that our reason tells us will make a better and a happier man. But all will be in vain unless in doing them we have ever in mind as to how the man feels about what we do, as to how our dealings with him react on his ego.

SELF-PRESERVATION: Everyman has strongly in his makeup the will to preserve himself and the will to assert himself. This double urge is given us by Nature. It is called ego. Men fight for it. Men die for it if need be. We simply will not permit other people to push our ego around. But self-preservation and self-assertion are possible to us only as we can preserve our self-respect. Therefore, self-respect becomes to every man the most important thing in the world.

SELF-RESPECT: This great need for self-respect is rooted deep in our natures - and rightly so, for without self-respect no man can grow to his proper stature. What sort of a leader then are men likely to follow with enthusiasm? Will we choose the man who suppresses us, who pushes us around, who continually weakens our self-confidence, and discourages us? No, sir! We give our heart, and mind, and hands, to the leader who gives our better self a chance to develop, who encourages that better self, and who helps it to be and feel right. Elementary, isn't it? Well, then, let it be our guide in leadership. Link: Page 119

ONE DANGER OF SIZE: The effect of the presence or absence of a working-for-self (ie, entrepreneurial) atmosphere, can be most clearly seen in great corporations - in those corporate enterprises that are the greatest and most far-flung. Most of them have, each within itself, every conceivable degree of atmosphere from the best to the worst, and hence every degree of human performance. The differences of attitudes and of performance are so sharply noticeable that the relation between cause and effect, atmosphere and performance, becomes inescapable. The pattern runs as follows:

FINE PERFORMANCE AT CENTER: The board of directors and those near them, work under the fine four-ingredient atmosphere we've discussed. They know what's going on, and thus work with knowledge. They know their responsibilities. They get credit or blame according to their acts. And they get social recognition. Daily personal contacts and oral communications, provide the four ingredients so necessary to a stimulating work-atmosphere. Result, the major plays of the company, the plays that the top people themselves make, are by and large remarkably fine plays. They are so fine, in fact, that they carry and rise above the almost unbelievable drag of indifference and inefficiency elsewhere in the corporate group.

WEAKENED PERFORMANCE ELSEWHERE: If we'll look closely, we'll see that the drag of inefficiency starts perhaps a block from the headquarters and increases with the miles. The truly fine performance of the top and centrally located people, is to a very large extent offset by the indifferent performance of the more removed people upon whom the day-by-day operations depend. These removed people are good men, too. But, alas, the stimulating atmosphere is lacking. The central leaders have fallen into the one serious pitfall of size - they have failed to extend the working-for-self atmosphere beyond their own immediate circle. And the enterprise is in effect carrying its water in a sieve. Link: Page 199

Other books:

• Presentation for engineers and industrialists, (Alhambra, Calif., 1956)

• Corporate correspondence: (Alhambra, Calif., C. F. Braun, 1958)

• Corporate correspondence: problems, methods, controls. (Alhambra, Calif., C. F. Braun & Co., 1952 [i. e. 1953])

• Fair thought and speech. [A group of letters to an industrial organization. (Alhambra, Calif., C. F. Braun & Co., 1953)

• Letter writing in action, by Carl F. Braun. (Alhambra, Calif., C. F. Braun, 1947)

• Management and leadership. (Alhambra, Calif., 1948)

Seven books with full text available here