BEST Peter Drucker Books & Quotes of All Time (February 2023)

by Arthur Worsley
M.A. Psychology, Oxford. McKinsey Alum. Founder & Editor at TAoL.

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Contents

1. Who Was Peter Drucker?

2. The Best Peter Drucker Books of All Time

3. More Books Like Peter Drucker's Books

4. Best Peter Drucker Quotes

5. Wish There Was a Faster/Easier Way?

Who Was Peter Drucker?

Peter Drucker (November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005) was an Austrian-American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation. He was also a leader in the development of management education, he invented the concept known as management by objectives and self-control, and he has been described as “the founder of modern management”.

Learn more about Peter Drucker

The Best Peter Drucker Books of All Time

Why these best Peter Drucker books and not others? To stay objective, I rank all my book recommendations by a combination of what’s most loved (Goodreads rating), what’s most popular (Goodreads review count) and what’s proven timlessly relevant (first publication date).

This isn’t a whimsical list. It’s a data-driven, crowdsourced collection of the best Peter Drucker books ever published as decided by book lovers like you.

And if you think something's missing? I LOVE book recommendations so if there are any other books by Peter Drucker that you think deserve mentioning, email me and I’ll be sure to include them in the next round of updates.

Until then, here are the best Peter Drucker books of all time...

Best Peter Drucker Books: The Practice of Management

1. The Practice of Management - Peter F. Drucker

Published 1954 // 416 pages // Rated 4.3 over 1,900 reviews on Goodreads

Best Peter Drucker Books: The Effective Executive

2. The Effective Executive - Peter F. Drucker (FREE Summary)

The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done

THE timeless classic on leadership and management; on getting the right things done - by the dean of business and management philosophy, Peter F. Drucker.

Published 1966 // 208 pages // Rated 4.1 over 31,200 reviews on Goodreads

3. Management - Peter F. Drucker

Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices

Published 1985 // 864 pages // Rated 4.3 over 1,200 reviews on Goodreads

Best Peter Drucker Books: Managing for Results

4. Managing for Results - Peter F. Drucker

Published 1964 // 256 pages // Rated 4.2 over 500 reviews on Goodreads

Best Peter Drucker Books: Adventures of a Bystander

5. Adventures of a Bystander - Peter F. Drucker

Published 1979 // 352 pages // Rated 4.4 over 200 reviews on Goodreads

Best Peter Drucker Books: Innovation and Entrepreneurship

6. Innovation and Entrepreneurship - Peter F. Drucker

Practice and Principles

Published 1985 // 288 pages // Rated 4.1 over 9,600 reviews on Goodreads

Best Peter Drucker Books: The Essential Drucker

7. The Essential Drucker - Peter F. Drucker

Published 2000 // 368 pages // Rated 4.1 over 9,700 reviews on Goodreads

Best Peter Drucker Books: Managing the Non-Profit Organization

8. Managing the Non-Profit Organization - Peter F. Drucker

Principles and Practices

Published 1990 // 256 pages // Rated 4.0 over 1,100 reviews on Goodreads

Best Peter Drucker Books: The Daily Drucker

9. The Daily Drucker - Peter F. Drucker

366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done

Published 2004 // 448 pages // Rated 4.1 over 900 reviews on Goodreads

Best Peter Drucker Books: The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask about Your Organization

10. The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask about Your Organization - Peter F. Drucker

An Inspiring Tool for Organizations and the People Who Lead Them

Published 1993 // 144 pages // Rated 4.0 over 1,000 reviews on Goodreads

See all Peter Drucker's books on Amazon
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Best Peter Drucker Quotes

Here are some of the best Peter Drucker of all time...

"The knowledge worker cannot be supervised closely or in detail. He can only be helped. But he must direct himself, and he must direct himself towards performance and contribution, that is toward effectiveness."

- Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive

"The truly important events on the outside are not the trends. They are changes in the trends."

- Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive

"The man who focusses on efforts and who stresses his downward authority is a subordinate no matter how exalted his title and rank. But the man who focusses on contribution and who takes responsibility for results no matter how junior, is, in the most literal sense of the phrase, ‘top management. He holds himself accountable for the performance of the whole."

- Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive

"It is just as risky, just as arduous, and just as uncertain to do something small that is new, as it is to do something big that is new. It is more productive to convert an opportunity into results than to solve a problem – which only restores the equilibrium of yesterday."

- Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive

"Meetings are by definition a concession to deficient organization For one either meets or one works. One cannot do both at the same time."

- Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive

"All military services have long ago learned that the officer who has given an order goes out and sees for himself whether it has been carried out. At the least he sends one of his own aides—he never relies on what he is told by the subordinate to whom the order was given. Not that he distrusts the subordinate; he has learned from experience to distrust communications."

- Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive

"People inevitably start out with an opinion; to ask them to search for the facts first is even undesirable. They will simply do what everyone is far too prone to do anyhow: look for the facts that fit the conclusion they have already reached."

- Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive

"It is more productive to convert an opportunity into results than to solve a problem - which only restores the equilibrium of yesterday."

- Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive

"Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge are essential resources, but only effectiveness converts them into results."

- Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive

"If there is any one “secret” of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time."

- Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive

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