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Executive ability

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The very practical need of our times is more executive ability. In proportion to the demand for it, such ability has always been scarce, and will steadily become more so under the rapid growth of organized enterprise of every sort. Happily, all of us seek power, be the direction what it may; we are builded for upward striving. Since it is only partially true that leaders are born, not made, this power-seeking tendency in our nature if cultivated may be turned into executive capacity. Such result is the chief purpose of this book. One must always follow, even while leading; we are never wholly initiators. Whom shall we follow? Insincerity, shiftiness, and bluster have too often won the ear of the foolish and clouded the discerning eye; but hurling these epithets indiscriminately at every fresh seeker of power just as truly wounds the man of vision and exalts the thick-skinned mercenary. Since this study lays bare the means by which men control others, one is enabled more surely to realize its second aim, the wise selection of leaders and rational submission to their guidance. The perpetuity of organized life depends upon the rise of superior men into positions of authority, even though it mean oneself, the half-god, must withdraw then the god appears. The methods described are those which executives use, and they use them to get results. Whether the results are desirable in the case of any particular executive, the reader will decide for himself in view of the principles presented in Part III. If these methods employed to control men at times seem crude and harsh, we must remember they were once more crude and more harsh. It is too often that, intent on the ideal, we overlook the very real progress already made, usually a case of overimpatience delaying its own aim. So in judging our leaders and their methods we should adopt the relative viewpoint, exacting of them no absolute standards, but content in view of all the attendant circumstances they measure up as men. Around few questions have more controversy and speculation been aroused than the one here treated. It is for this reason that in the following pages much concrete material is being presented, since, in charting an intricate field such as individual ascendancy, a book of deductions is to be feared. As for the product in toto I venture to hope that through its influence not a few people will work together with increased efficiency.

Executive ability.