James Autry: Ethical Leadership and the Servant-Leader Model

Introduction: The Accidental Businessman

As the title of his autobiography Confessions of an Accidental Businessman suggests, James Autry became a businessman largely by chance — yet he never simply walked away from that so-called accident. Instead, he used his success to enrich the visions of everyday Americans regarding their personal living spaces. His best-known role is as publisher of the popular middle-class lifestyle magazine Better Homes and Gardens. Beyond that, Autry has continued to enrich the vision of American business leadership more broadly.

True empowerment and ethical leadership, Autry argues, is not about "I take some of my power and give it to you." That, he insists, "is 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 constructively — to help others and to build a better business environment as well as a profitable corporation (Autry, 2000).

All too often, given the well-publicized abuses of today's corporate executives of their perks and benefits, it is tempting to assume that being cutthroat is what competitiveness requires and that good business leadership is necessarily incompatible with good ethics. Yet James Autry's career stands as a clear example that such cynical notions are manifestly untrue. According to the biography on his website, Autry is no newcomer when he speaks enthusiastically about the importance of an ethical business life. He spent thirty-two years in the business world, fifteen of them in senior management with the Meredith Corporation, a Fortune 500 magazine company based in Des Moines, Iowa, where he served as senior vice president and president of its magazine group. He holds no MBA. His philosophy is practical rather than theoretical (Autry, 2004).

Career Background and Business Philosophy

Over the course of his career, Autry demonstrated a committed vision toward his company and high ethical standards, building a media presence without any of the aggressive posturing seen in competitors such as Rupert Murdoch. One of the keys to Autry's balanced approach to corporate ethics is his own balanced life. As well as being a successful businessman and a philosopher of corporate management, he is also a poet in the fullest sense of the word.

Autry does not write merely about increasing corporate productivity. Rather, as his biography notes, "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." He believes in the power of poetry to heal the human soul and has used his financial resources to advance the poetic cause.

Poetry, Community, and a Balanced Life

In the fall of 1991, the Kentucky Poetry Review published a James A. Autry issue. Its introduction, quoting fellow Mississippian Willie Morris, observed that 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 about boyhood experiences in Mississippi and Tennessee or about the pressures of corporate life, Autry's poems are described as "the products of a man gifted with something positive to say and the talent to say it" (Kentucky Poetry Review, Vol. 27, No. 2, Fall 1991).

A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Autry grew up in Mississippi as the son and grandson of Baptist ministers and a painter. His early career was remarkably diverse: he worked as a reporter, photographer, musician, student tutor, copy boy, farmhand, and Teletype operator, among other occupations. After graduating from the state university in Oxford, he served as a jet fighter pilot in France for four years. This eclectic background clearly shaped the breadth and humanity of his later leadership philosophy.

Conclusion: Ethics and Profitability as Complementary Goals

When one is true to one's values and asks what is the right thing to do — not merely what is the expedient or most immediately profitable thing to do — one ultimately makes the most profit over time by establishing trust among employees, stockholders, and the community at large. James Autry's career and philosophy stand as a sustained argument that servant leadership and ethical conduct are not obstacles to business success but, properly understood, the very foundation of it.