What Is the Purpose of an Executive?

Executives and those with executive tasks – regardless of their titles – are responsible for the planning and analysis of required programs. They are further responsible for imple- mentation of such programs, and executing them. Planning and execution go together. Ultimately, the challenge to organizational leaders is to be effective in achieving or sur- passing the reasonably set goals of the organization. Peter F. Drucker (1910–2005) in The Effective Executive argues that the primary strategy of work is measured not in the bril- liance of its conception, but in how well the desired goals were actually achieved. The na- ture of work changes constantly, he observes.

According to Drucker, “knowledge workers” are the human capital through which ob- jectives are achieved. Knowledge workers are members of an organization whose effec- tiveness is realized through the use of information often accessed and partially analyzed through technology. Drucker posits that effectiveness is not simply necessary as a man- agerial attribute; it is vital and can be learned through concerted effort, leading to still greater effectiveness. Drucker writes:

I have called “executives” those knowledge workers, managers, or individual pro- fessionals who are expected by virtue of their positions or their knowledge to make decisions in the normal course of their work that have significant impact on the per- formance and results of the whole. They are by no means a majority of the knowledge workers. For knowledge work too, as in all areas, there is unskilled work and routine. But they are a much larger proportion of the total knowledge workforce than any or- ganization chart ever reveals.