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CEOs again...

The Wall Street Journal published a thought provoking piece a couple of days ago by Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan In Defence of the CEO which rang many bells for me, after my recent blog CEOs - Jekyll or Hyde?

Two things particularly caught my eye.

On my comments and distinction between celebrity and celebrated CEOs, Ulrike Melmendier of the University of California, Berkeley and UCLA's Geoff Tate 2009 study found that companies performed poorly after their leaders were voted 'CEO of the Year', because of the distractions that came with the fame, like writing a book and hobnobbing at Davos. A truly great CEO cannot be distracted, she must remain a great intelligence gatherer, a great communicator and ultimately a great decider, and meetings are one of her most important tools. 

Second, the article points to Harvard's Michael Porter and Nitin Nohria's view of Style 1 and Style 2 distinctions of CEO behaviours. In their time-use study of 354 Indian CEOs - still work in progress, the researchers collected detailed information on the nature of CEOs' meetings, including who attended. Two dominant management style emerged. 'Style 1' leaders, in their taxonomy, spend most of their time meeting with employees; they also tend to hold larger meetings and to include people from a wider set of departments within the organization. 'Style 2' CEOs are more apt to spend their time alone, in one-to-one interaction, and outside rather than inside the firm.

This points to the all-too-important issue of how CEOs engage and in doing so, extract not only data and information but a sense of what her stakeholders and staff believe are priorities for the organisations. Add to this the instinct we expect our CEOs to have, and we can see the ways successful organisation sustain their performance and leadership.

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