Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

From the very beginning of the announcement that Katie Couric would anchor the CBS News (CBS-A), she never had a chance. The very thing that created the media circus - her enormous salary - was what never gave her a real chance to succeed. It was all set up to give a huge surge that had no opportunity to hold over the long haul.

We talked last post about the importance of flying under the radar at times, something companies may need to take a new look at. Sam Walton did it very successfully, and it never hurt him that he was never taken seriously until it was found out he was the richest man in the world.

I think the creation of the superstar CEO may have been a huge mistake. Along with the superstar status has come the type of scrutiny that very few people can survive. I'm not talking ethics here, but not being able to make a move without being smothered by innuendo and amateur CEO quarterbacks who think they understand what is going on.

Another unfortunate side effect of the superstar CEO, is the astronomical salaries they receive, whether they perform or not. While it doesn't bother me one bit if a CEO that performs great for a company makes a lot of money, it does matter that low-performing CEOs get it no matter what they do. Incentives should be connected to results, not superstar status.

The other major problem with CEOs and companies is the continual emphasis upon what they do from quarter to quarter; something I think creates a lot of artificial scenarios that result in a lot of good business leaders either stepping down or getting fired.

CEO of Gray & Christmas, John Challenger, says that business leaders have become so much like celebrities, that it's similar to being a major sports star.

"Twenty years ago, the CEO was much more powerful," Challenger said. "He was much better able to get behind the fortress of the board and top management team to withstand pressures from shareholders, employees and press.

"There wasn't much transparency then either. It's only in recent years that the CEO has become, in many ways, attacked on all sides."

Challenger added that there have been 614 CEO changes since January 2007, up from last year's record-breaking pace.

We could lose a lot of good CEOs in businesses if all that is done is focusing on the next quarters results, continual huge salaries despite company performance and always putting themselves in the public eye.

These are all things that have been valued recently, which need to change. The majority of the press only focus on the size of CEO salaries because it gets them eyeballs. From there they like to zero in on short-term results, putting pressure on CEOs because of the publicity.

I think the emphasis upon getting into the press is where an improvement could really be made. While this looks like a great opportunity to get free publicity for the company, it is a minimum a double-edged sword that cuts both ways; usually cutting worse to the negative side.
 
It seems to me that it may be a time for a lot of companies and CEOs to do business differently in this sense. The superstar CEO doesn't seem to have much of a chance to survive to me. The press loves to put them up on the pedestal, so that once they're there, they can then work on bringing them down. 

Working quietly on building a great company increasingly makes more sense to me than becoming a press creation that can create an illusion of invincibility that can quickly come tumbling down.

Do you think CEOs should shed the superstar status?