How to Become a Successful Executive

Over four decades in industry, two of them as a manage­ment consultant, I have observed successive waves of eager young men enter the business scene. Their minds have been incandescent with ideas, hopes, confidence, ideals. Too often, after they have climbed a few rungs of the ladder, I have seen the heat diminish and the light flicker. Under the suffocation of layers of authority, the stultification of conformity and the insistence of the daily burden, the once brilliant flame has shriveled to the dull glow of a dying ember. This, the tragedy in youth's am­bition to become an executive.
A few minds continue to shine steadily. Some take on added luminescence. They shed light on all persons and all problems they approach. These minds are the guiding lights of business, the lights that men will follow.