Spirit and being in management: a Heideggerian redescription of Drucker’s notion of the spirit of management

Although there is increasing talk of the importance of spirit in organisational contexts, the notion of spirit is nevertheless a difficult notion to speak about in an age dominated by positivist forms of rationality. In this paper, Drucker's notion of spirit will be re-described in Heidegger's terms both to bring out the notion of spirit itself and the importance of spirit. As will be seen, Drucker believes that while management by objectives is a necessary, it is not a sufficient condition for effective performance. He maintains that a notion of spirit needs to underpin organisational interactions. Yet he does not define what he means by spirit. Heidegger's notion of authentic concern will be used to bring out Drucker's notion of spirit and thus provide a language in which to talk about spirit in organisational contexts.