By L. Ron Hubbard

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To make your products well known, to increase the income of your organizations and to accomplish what you are trying to do, it is vital that you have good executives who know what they are doing and who do it.

Basically, the work of the organization does not depend upon the executive. It depends upon his supervision. The work of the organization depends upon its personnel and their performance of duties in exact compliance with their hat folders¹ to accomplish the purposes of their jobs. However, it is very difficult for personnel to accomplish their duties when they do not have good executives to provide overall supervision and liaison amongst jobs. Therefore, it is only necessary to have a bad executive who has a poor understanding of what his work is all about to reduce morale, cause turnover of personnel, to impede promotion² and to lower the income of organizations.

A considerable study of the subject of being an executive has been done. There is more to it than one would ordinarily suppose.

In the first place, an executive should be able to perform better every single job in the organization than the personnel performing it. In this way the executive will be effective, since he will know what these jobs entail. Thus, an executive is selected primarily for his knowledge of the organization.

Another attribute of the executive is an ability to get along with people and to aid them to understand their duties, the whys and wherefores of their jobs, and their relationships to other jobs and the communication lines³ which connect them.

Another attribute is the ability to get something done via another person.

These three attributes are easily the most important. They are followed by the other side of an executive’s activities which consist of planning, organizing and promotion, as well as either setting up or gaining compliance with organizational policy.

The principle on which most people should operate in an organization is “Get the work done.” This is as it should be. However, this would be fatal for an executive. An executive must work with the idea of “Get people to get the work done.” That is the datum on which an executive must operate.

Let us take a contrary view of this situation. Let us suppose we have an “executive” who can himself work hard and who has the datum “get the work done.” This is what he does. He pulls off some odds and ends of organizational duties into his lap, sits at his desk and in a state of exasperation tries to do everything that comes his way. Under such an executive income will decline, morale will turn sour, and there will be a large employee turnover. This “executive” simply regards himself as a workhorse who is too overburdened to pay attention to details. He makes mistakes, he does not execute policy and no matter how hard and how well he works at these jobs he has cut out for himself he never heads up or runs an organization and he never builds anything of any size. At length, he will begin to discourage business and activity on the part of the organization, since the work is already too burdensome for him to handle.

Chaos and confusion are the result of an executive’s (1) inability or unwillingness to simply supervise a job and do none of their work, and (2) inability to grant beingness⁴ or confront the good sense of other people.

1. hat folder: a folder in which is kept the data on how to do one’s job, i.e., the write-ups, checksheets and packs that outline the purposes, know-how and duties of a job. Hat is slang for the title and work of a position in an organization; taken from the fact that in many professions, such as railroading, the type of hat worn is the badge of the job. To wear a hat is to do the work of a job.

2. promotion: making things known. It’s getting things out. It’s getting one’s self known. It’s getting one’s products out.

3. communication line: the route along which a communication travels from one person to another or any sequences through which a message of any character may go.

4. grant beingness: let someone else be what he is. Listening to what someone has to say and taking care to understand them, being courteous, refraining from needless criticism, expressing admiration or affinity are examples of the actions of someone who can grant others beingness.

—L. Ron Hubbard, from Modern Management Technology Defined
© 1962, 1994 L.Ron Hubbard Library. All rights reserved.