Leaving Fingerprints on Others
In the next to last lesson in A Year With Peter Drucker (Maciariello, 2014) we learn what a great mentor Peter Drucker was to Rick Warren and Bob Buford. Rick Warren said that when you visit Saddleback Church you see “his [Peter Drucker’s] fingerprints all over it (p. 389).” Warren also reflected on what he called “essential Druckers.”
- Leaders don’t ask, “What do I want?” but “What needs to be done and where does it need to be done?”
- “The mission comes first.”
“Here lies a man who knew how to put into service more able men than he was himself.” ~ Andrew Carnegie wanted to put this on his gravestone
Then Drucker mentored us to ask, “What is in my life that needs to be 
done, and where do I need to be doing it?” Drucker believed it was important for us to also know what to stop doing (Maciariello, 2014). If we are to become all we can be, it is simply impossible to keep adding activities to our work and to our lives without dropping other activities. During a mentoring session with Rick Warren, Drucker once asked, “Don’t tell me what your doing, Rick. Tell me what you stopped doing (p. 391).” Drucker was clearly a great mentor. We need to learn from his modeling of how to leave our fingerprints on others.
Reference
Maciariello, J. A. (2014). A year with Peter Drucker: 52 weeks of coaching for leadership effectiveness. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.
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