No Substitute for Victory: Lessons in Strategy and Leadership from General Douglas Macarthur

Chapter 30. Develop Management Depth

In recent years, middle managers have often been maligned. They have been treated as organizational dead wood and their ranks have often been mercilessly downsized. Leaders of large organizations sometimes forget that managers convey and execute strategies. They represent an organization's frontline leadership.

MacArthur needed no convincing that managers were a most important component of an organization. In the early 1930s, in response to a bill calling for forced furloughs on half-pay for a substantial number of active officers, he told the House Military Affairs Committee:

The foundation of our National Defense system is the Regular Army, and the foundation of the Regular Army is the officer. He is the ...