The "Cult of the CEO" is okay... if effectively harnessed.
March 2001

Watch for the first quarter 2001 edition of Strategy + Business magazine (issue 22). Of particular interest in this compelling issue is "Beyond the Cult of the CEO: Building Institutional Leadership" by Bruce A. Pasternack, Thomas Williams, and Paul Anderson. What they say is good: Companies don't need celebrity leaders and superstars in the executive suite. Instead of creating a personality cult with themselves at the centre, CEOs should be working to institutionalize leadership throughout the ranks, developing employees' entrepreneurial capabilities so the company can be self-governing and self-renewing.

I don't think the authors give charisma enough credit. The authors have overlooked how appropriately-harnessed charisma - using publishing, books in particular - can be effective in the battle to institutionalize leadership, not to mention a host of other good things too.

The blend of "celebrity" and leadership doesn't have to mean an "ego-satisfying, media-approved urge to lead by push." Companies do need leaders who can promote their vision. Framing the leader's insights and vision in a work of substance - publishing - can be an enormously effective pedagogical tool. If CEOs can harness their influence appropriately, they will be more effective at institutionalizing leadership.

The authors refer to Jack Welch - one obvious celebrity CEO - but they don't say how he has managed to institutionalize leadership through his ranks. First, Welch has made a habit of frequent, simple well-communicated messages. Second, there is Robert Salter's book, Jack Welch and the GE Way. It is Salter's book, but Welch's support of the author (Salter met Welch on a regular basis, interviewing him and most of the GE senior management) has undoubtedly helped GE employees, shareholders, and the general public better understand GE. The book draws extensively on Welch's own words to deliver his familiar messages, thus the book has become Welch's own primer on corporate communications.

Consider Sam Walton's memoir, Made in America, which details the principles that made Wal-Mart a phenomenal success, or Lee Iacocca's autobiography, Iacocca, about the auto industry and his work that resurrected Chrysler. People read - and continue to read - these books to be reminded about general strategy and specific tactics: how these CEOs thought about business and how they managed people. They are both stories about entrepreneurship, about believing in an idea and sticking to it even when others don't. Helped along by the book, Walton's basic values are still a driving force at Wal-Mart.

Institutionalizing leadership is good management. But harnessing the vision of a charismatic leader through writing and publishing will create the path that makes it possible to institutionalize leadership. If CEOs actively and effectively promote their vision, employees will know what they do, who they are, and what to do. It will mean employees can act more like owners and entrepreneurs rather than employees and hired hands. It means the company has a better chance of being "built to last."

The Knowledge Marketing Inquiry: Does book publishing by CEOs effectively cement leadership attributes that will filter down through the company? Send me your thoughts.

RobFerguson@KnowledgeMarketingGroup.com