It's Official: CEOs Really Are Clueless
from the just-as-you-always-suspected dept
This probably won’t surprise too many people, but a new study shows that, despite an outward appearance of confidence, CEOs often have no idea what they’re doing — and, at the same time, often don’t really have that much of an impact on how a company performs. Obviously, they do have an impact on the big decisions, but there are so many other moving parts that a CEO often can’t impact most of the factors that determine how successful a company is. Of course, at the same time, they can put in place the environment and infrastructure to support everyone to make success easier. No one ever said that the CEO should be the sole responsible person for success or failure — but his or her goal should be to keep the whole company moving in the same direction and to provide the resources and environment necessary for the company to succeed.
Comments on “It's Official: CEOs Really Are Clueless”
What the CEO should do:
Peter Drucker, discussing Alfred Sloan (the CEO of GM whose strategy for GM worked for many, many years), says that the CEO should have exactly one responsibility: long term strategic planning. That’s a fulltime job, and that’s it.
A small company usually has to ask more of its CEO, but the point is that deciding what a company should be doing in five years requires a lot of thinking, education, info gathering and finally deciding. And if anyone down the ladder makes these longterm decisions, the CEO may not follow them.
Most American companies seemm to have a different idea: there’s hardly ANY long term planning.
– The Precision Blogger
http://precision-blogging.blogspot.com