ROCKEFELLER: AN INTRODUCTION
John D. Rockefeller was arguably the greatest business leader of the twentieth century. At his peak in 1890, Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust was in control of numerous companies in dozens of states across the United State. The New York Times obituary for Rockefeller stated, “It was estimated after Mr. Rockefeller retired from business, that he had accumulated close to 1.5 billion out of the earnings of the Standard Oil trust and out of his other investments. This is probably the greatest amount of wealth that any private citizen had ever been able to accumulate by his own efforts” (Cromwell, 1937, para. 2). At the time of the Sherman Anti-trust act, the Standard Oil Trust was twenty times the size of its closest competitor. After extensive research from various hard-copy and electronic sources, I may confidently conclude that John D. Rockefeller’s business dealings make him a strong leader even by today’s standards.
HISTORY OF LEADERSHIP
The definition of leadership, according to the online dictionary at Dictionary.com (2006), is the “position or function of a leader, the ability to lead, or an act or instance of guidance” (para. 2). In the early constructional years of the United States’s markets, this definition of leadership may have been enough to judge the depth of a leader in his given field. However, as the market grew and expanded through American history, so did the need for greater structural organization. A leader could no longer be judged by how clean his shop was or if all the shelves were consistently stocked. Leaders in Rockefeller’s time of power needed to be intelligent, charismatic, and innovative in order to stay ahead and succeed.
ROCKEFELLER’S BEGINNINGS
“John Rockefeller b ...