James Autry: A biographical overview of an effective and ethical leader in business today If, as the title of his autobiography Confessions of An Accidental Businessman suggests, Jin Autry became a businessman by chance, he didn't walk away from the so-called accident. Rather, James Autry used his success to enrich the visions of everyday Americans of their personal living spaces. His best-known role is as the publisher of the popular middle-class and middle-market lifestyle magazine, Better Homes and Gardens. Autry also continues to enrich the vision of American business leadership. True "empowerment" and ethical leadership, Autry states is not about "I take some of my power and give it to you," rather Autry suggests, "that's the myth. Real empowerment is recognizing that you, by your skill, your knowledge, your commitment, you already have power." Autry states he has tried to use that power within himself in constructive ways. He has tried to help others and to build a better business environment as well as a profitable corporation. (Autry, 2000)

All too often, given the abuses of today's corporate executives of their perks and benefits, it is tempting to make the broad and erroneous assumption that to be cutthroat is what it takes to be competitive and to be a good business leader is to lack good ethics. Yet James Autry's career stands as a shining example that such cynical notions are manifestly untrue. According to the biography on his website, James Autry is no neophyte when he enthuses about the importance of an ethical business life. He spent thirty-two years in the business world, fifteen of them in senior management...

He was senior VP and president of its magazine group. He has no MBA. His philosophy is practical rather than theoretical. (Official Website, 2004)
Over the course of his career, Autry has shown a committed vision to his company, to high ethical standards, and built a media empire without any of the posturing seen by, for example, Rupert Murdoch and other competitors. One of the keys to Autry's balanced vision of corporate ethics is his own balanced life. As well as a successful businessman and a philosopher of corporate management he is also a philosopher of life, in general even a poet. Autry is not simply a poet in the sense he pens 'empowerment' lyrics about increasing the mere productivity of a company. Rather, "Autry does regular poetry readings in schools and communities. He also is co-founder of the nationally known Des Moines National Poetry Festival now beyond its tenth year." Thus, Autry believes in the power of poetry to heal the human soul and has used his financial largess to advance the poetic cause. In the fall of 1991 the Kentucky Poetry Review published a James A. Autry issue. It began, in its introduction "in the words of fellow Mississippian Willie Morris, many of Autry's poems are a tribute to his Mississippi roots, to the places and people that nurtured him and which now sustain him in the corporate boardrooms of America, in anonymous, scented hotel rooms, on 747 flights from New York to L.A. while he sits strapped in his seat writing about half-forgotten funerals in country churchyards. Whether writing…