Top Five Celebrity CEO Pitfalls June 11, 2008 From the Inside Training e-Newsletter
By Margery Weinstein
It's great to work for a company with a famous CEO. Better still if you work directly with him or her, and so can impress friends and new acquaintances with famous CEO-related anecdotes at cocktail parties. But it turns out, according to global consultant BlessingWhite, well-known CEOs—even those who make the news for something other than illegal activity—aren't all they're cracked up to be.
Here are the top five celebrity CEO pitfalls identified by BlessingWhite CEO Christopher Rice:
• Copycat cultures. Mission and values form the core of an organization’s culture, and should be authentic and unique in order to afford competitive advantage, says Rice. Some CEOs make the mistake of trying to replicate the strategies of the market leader or recreate the culture of their last firm without regard to the culture already in place.
• Communication breakdowns. Town hall meetings are pretty difficult, so isn't that enough? "Leaders at every level must state and re-state what the organization stands for, as well as the strategy and values," Rice points out. "Otherwise, the CEO risks being tuned out and the impact of the message ignored, with most employees thinking the speech is just for the sake of investors and analysts, not core to the organization's mission."
• Hypocrisy at the top. A CEO's failure to exemplify core values will not go undetected. BlessingWhite's research indicates most employees do not feel safe challenging their leaders' decisions and behaviors, but the findings also suggest employees will take stock—and move on if they perceive hypocrisy at the top.
• Forgetting the team. Culture cannot be successfully changed and sustained without help from the front lines, Rice notes. The problem is mid-level managers too often are held accountable for business results only, and culture issues are left to be the responsibility of senior leadership or the HR department. Empty labels. Integrity, respect, customer first, innovation, and risk taking are some of the values you probably consider core to your organizational culture, says Rice. But a challenge remains. "New CEOs sometimes are unable to make these intangible terms real for employees throughout the organization," he explains. "The definitions, not the labels, shape employee behavior."
Editor's Note: How do your employees feel about the CEO of your organization? And does it truly matter? Join the discussion on Training Day.
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