The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives
… nice article forwarded via LinkedIn. See http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/01/02/the-seven-habits-of-spectacularly-unsuccessful-executives/.
By referring to research done by Prof. Sydney Finkelstein, Eric Jackson argues for the following seven habits that CEOs of unsuccessful companies did have
- Habit # 1: They see themselves and their companies as dominating their environment: “Pride will have a fall”, one could say.
- Habit #2: They identify so completely with the company that there is no clear boundary between their personal interests and their corporation’s interests: this one is interesting, as one would have expected that the more one identifies with one’s company, the better it is. The danger apparently is that a “private empire” mentality may take place.
- Habit #3: They think they have all the answers: the danger here IMHO is more obvious: one would not listen to other opinions or perspectives.
- Habit #4: They ruthlessly eliminate anyone who isn’t completely behind them: you loose excellent people in your team …
- Habit #5: They are consummate spokespersons, obsessed with the company image … and focus too much on the media.
- Habit #6: They underestimate obstacles: that is an interesting one again. Because, if you are too cautious or cowardly that’s no good either …
- Habit #7: They stubbornly rely on what worked for them in the past: this may be a classic …
IMHO the difficulty with all of these it that to some degree we want CEOs to have these habits. The tricky thing is to have sufficient but not to much of these properties. The question is how to measure …
Add comment January 6th, 2012
