Becoming a Principle-Driven Leader

Charles Koch is on a mission to foster more principled behavior in the world. He’s written several books on principle-based management, and co-authored this one — the first I’ve read — with his son Chase. The goal: help businesses, societies, and individuals thrive by adopting a principle-based mindset. The key distinction is between management through principles and top-down management by rules. The latter is impracticable because managers aren’t omniscient. Arbitrary constraints proliferate in such a system, leading to stasis and entropy. How do you keep things moving in the right direction without proliferating rules? By infusing the organization with principles. The book showcases 41 that made the Kochs successful, including Integrity, Openness, Property Rights, Mutual Benefit, Personal Knowledge, Stewardship and Compliance, and more. Some of these are more obvious than others. Sidebars throughout the book highlight each principle as the authors narrate stories from their careers…