Jeffrey Krames, author of Inside Drucker’s Brain, wrote a great piece detailing why the imperial CEO is dead—or should be. (Hat tip to ManagingLeadership for the link to this post.)

Krames quotes Sungard’s CEO, Chris Conde, “The CEO is like a conductor—he conducts and orchestrates a system. It is very arrogant to think you can make better decisions than the thousands of people below you. The role of the boss is to make a handful of decisions that cannot be made by anyone else and to maintain the collaboration systems. I really think the rise of these collaborative systems is redefining organizational structures and the role of the CEO; they are the last nail in the coffin of the imperial CEO.” and goes on to detail the advantages of collaboration.

All of which I heartily agree with.

The problem is that the imperial ego isn’t dead, it’s not only alive and well, it’s still kicking butt instead of having its butt kicked.

As I said Tuesday, we’re a long way from ending the sense of entitlement felt by so many executives and worse, executives-to-be.

It’s a NIMBY kind of problem. People understand logically that doing to the new generation that which was done to them isn’t really payback and that it should stop, but feel that it should stop after them.

Survival-forced collaboration may diminish the imperial CEO power, but I doubt it will go far in changing either their MAP or their sense of entitlement.

There will still (always?) be a percentage that believes they deserve giant compensation packages and that they could make a better decision/choice if they just had time. They won’t rush to empower their people and will be dragged kicking and screaming in to the collaborative future.

And just because the guy four levels down is making profitable decisions for the company doesn’t mean he’ll get a ride on the imperial jet any time soon.

Image credit: flickr

Yesterday was my birthday and it was lovely. I did nothing useful or productive all day, just enjoyed puttering and reading, and then was taken to dinner. As I said, lovely; and I sure wasn’t going to spoil the day with a patch of creative writing.

But a hilarious post at Wally Bock’s Three Star Leadership about Big Ed Whiteacre’s magic mirror reminded me of something I wrote last year that compliments it perfectly.

Be sure to read Wally’s post; I’ve included mine below.

Power, Arrogance and MAP

I recently questioned whether, in fact, the imperial CEO is indeed dead as many are saying.

Wednesday Dan McCarthy was inspired to write 10 Ways to Avoid the Arrogance of Power after reading The Arrogance of Power by Jeffrey Pfeffer, a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Business School. Pfeffer says,

“The higher you go in an organization, the more those around you are going to tell you that you are right. The higher reaches of organizations–which includes government, too, in case you slept through the past eight years–are largely absent of critical thought. … There is also evidence, including some wonderful studies by business school professor Don Hambrick at Penn State, that shows the corroding effects of ego. Leaders filled with hubris are more likely to overpay for acquisitions and engage in other risky strategies. Leaders ought to cultivate humility.” He ends by advising not to hold your breath waiting for this to change.”

I think much of Dan’s advice is good, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for the advice to be taken.

I think that power corrupts those susceptible to it, not all those who have it; there are enough examples of powerful people who didn’t succumb to keep me convinced.

Susceptibility is woven in MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) and is especially prevalent in today’s society of mememememememe with its sense of entitlement.

Changing MAP and stopping drinking are similar, since the individual has to choose to change. All the horses and all the men can’t convince the king to change—that only happens from the inside out.

Moreover, as I’ve frequently said, MAP is sneaky; it will pretend to change and then revert to its normal pattern when no one’s looking.

We, the people, can’t force them to change, but we can learn to sustain our attention span and keep looking.

Image credit: Svadilfari on flickr and Jim Frazier on flickr

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies are a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

Last week we started looking at our heroes — first as cowboys and then why/how they needed to change. It’s a timely subject, especially considering the attitudes/actions of so many of our current ones — from Donald Trump to Travis Kalanick and all those inbetween.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

I recently questioned whether, in fact, the imperial CEO is indeed dead as many are saying.

Wednesday Dan McCarthy was inspired to write 10 Ways to Avoid the Arrogance of Power after reading The Arrogance of Power by Jeffrey Pfeffer, a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Business School. Pfeffer says,

“The higher you go in an organization, the more those around you are going to tell you that you are right. The higher reaches of organizations–which includes government, too, in case you slept through the past eight years–are largely absent of critical thought. … There is also evidence, including some wonderful studies by business school professor Don Hambrick at Penn State, that shows the corroding effects of ego. Leaders filled with hubris are more likely to overpay for acquisitions and engage in other risky strategies. Leaders ought to cultivate humility.” He ends by advising not to hold your breath waiting for this to change.”

I think much of Dan’s advice is good, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for the advice to be taken.

I think that power corrupts those susceptible to it, not all those who have it; there are enough examples of powerful people who didn’t succumb to keep me convinced.

Susceptibility is woven in MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) and is especially prevalent in today’s society of mememememememe with its sense of entitlement.

Changing MAP and stopping drinking are similar, since the individual has to choose to change. All the horses and all the men can’t convince the king to change—that only happens from the inside out.

Moreover, as I’ve frequently said, MAP is sneaky; it will pretend to change and then revert to its normal pattern when no one’s looking.

We, the people, can’t force them to change, but we can learn to sustain our attention span and keep looking.

Image credit: flickr

Why Can’t We Figure Out How to Select Leaders? was the question asked by Harvard’s Jim Heskett at the beginning of February.

It’s a pertinent question right now, since for more than a decade many of the people held up as examples of great leadership have fallen on their faces and even ended up in jail. Worse still, the companies they ran were destroyed or badly damaged—short term Wall Street numbers were met at the cost of long-term innovation and sustainability.

The Forum drew 88 comments that Heskett says fall in three categories,

• enumerating the qualities that we should look for in a leader without suggesting how we identify and select for them;
• the body of knowledge based on research and practice that can guide and improve the selection process and its outcomes; and
• why theory has had less impact on results than we might expect, essentially identifying reasons for a gap between theory and results achieved in practice.

Two quotes I found very pertinent from the original article,

“At most companies, people spend 2 percent of their time recruiting and 75 percent managing their recruiting mistakes.” — Richard Fairbank, CEO, Capital One

This is so true it’s depressing. I started my company to teach better hiring skills; it was funded by a retired CEO who believed that hiring was a manager’s most crucial task and that few managers were very good at it—boom or bust there was little interest. (Going forward, the information was folded into our overall coaching program.)

“There are certain jobs where almost nothing you can learn about candidates before they start predicts how they’ll do once they’re hired.” –Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers)

Also true. It’s the difference of asking customers what they want and conceiving a product that no one mentioned because it didn’t exist—think iPod. There are no questions to tell you if a candidate can see around corners.

Even hiring a person who has done it before doesn’t mean they can do it again; there are just too many variables in any given situation.

How could you have hired someone to deal with the current crisis when it was unimaginable just a few short months ago.

Perhaps it’s time for companies to stop looking for guarantees, perfection or a savior—no candidate walks on water.

I believe what is needed is to spread leadership throughout the company and avoid hiring imperial egos. What do you think?

I hope you’ll take the time to read both Heskett’s article (short) and comments (interesting and valuable) and then leave your thoughts here.

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: flickr

I recently questioned whether, in fact, the imperial CEO is indeed dead as many are saying.

Wednesday Dan McCarthy was inspired to write 10 Ways to Avoid the Arrogance of Power after reading The Arrogance of Power by Jeffrey Pfeffer, a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Business School. Pfeffer says,

“The higher you go in an organization, the more those around you are going to tell you that you are right. The higher reaches of organizations–which includes government, too, in case you slept through the past eight years–are largely absent of critical thought. … There is also evidence, including some wonderful studies by business school professor Don Hambrick at Penn State, that shows the corroding effects of ego. Leaders filled with hubris are more likely to overpay for acquisitions and engage in other risky strategies. Leaders ought to cultivate humility.” He ends by advising not to hold your breath waiting for this to change.”

I think much of Dan’s advice is good, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for the advice to be taken.

I think that power corrupts those susceptible to it, not all those who have it; there are enough examples of powerful people who didn’t succumb to keep me convinced.

Susceptibility is woven in MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) and is especially prevalent in today’s society of mememememememe with its sense of entitlement.

Changing MAP and stopping drinking are similar, since the individual has to choose to change. All the horses and all the men can’t convince the king to change—that only happens from the inside out.

Moreover, as I’ve frequently said, MAP is sneaky; it will pretend to change and then revert to its normal pattern when no one’s looking.

We, the people, can’t force them to change, but we can learn to sustain our attention span and keep looking.

Image credit: flickr