Leadership Lessons of the Ottoman Turks

 

“Flexibility,” “Adaptability,” “Gets along well with others.” I don’t believe they’re what’s needed today if we’re going to force our institutions to adapt to us–which is our central problem.

The Ottoman Turks for over three centuries produced an unbroken succession of able leaders. Their performance appraisal sheet would have looked like this:

Adaptability
0
Adventuresomeness
100
Cruelty
100
Energy
100
Flexibility
0
Intelligence
100
Justice
100
Gets along well with others
0

— Robert Townsend, Further Up the Organization

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