The premature passing of CEOs is no longer a rare event. Historically this condition beset only an unlucky few, but we are now witnessing many damaging examples of leadership gone awry. A recent study of CEO succession in the world’s 2500 largest companies, conducted by a top management consulting firm, found that the frequency of CEO succession events increased from 6% per year in 1995 to 11.2% per year in 2000. Perhaps even more telling are findings that in 2001 only 47% of corporate chiefs who departed did so under terms of a so-called regular transition, compared with a whopping 72% in 1995.

How pervasive is dysfunctional leadership? I’ve encountered senior executives who insist on pursuing patterns of dysfunctional behavior — who, even in the face of withering heat brought on by mere lip service to the need for fundamental change; pursue actions that lay wide open the web of narcissism that has engulfed them. Is this seemingly endless line of leadership betrayals we see unfolding before us a legitimate indictment of the majority of leaders currently running (or available to run) our enterprises?

My experience, and that of senior colleagues in the executive search profession, suggests that this is not the case. However, our experience does attest to the fact that while this dysfunction is not the norm; the trend of premature succession is on the rise and is likely to accelerate.
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This is my inaugural blog post.  I’m late to this game but look forward to lending some useful perspective to the online dialogue around senior level recruiting/search.  Hopefully most of what I end up writing will be worth reading and at least some of it worth contemplating after you leave this blog.

While my plan is to offer substantive insight, I’m going to allow my first post to be a ‘venting session’ about one of my pet peeves.  First, if I may let me quickly establish that I have some basis on which to offer my opinions.  I’ve invested over 20 years in this crazy business and have been blessed to have worked at levels that should qualify me as at least enough of a ‘player’ to have experiences and perspective worthy of commentary (sector leader for a top 4 global firm; completed over 75 board and/or CEO searches; 10+ searches for those ‘horrible’ examples of capitalistic excess…compensation over $10 million, dozens in the mere-7-figures and hundreds of equally critical players that make up the six-figure masses).

Now that ‘pet peeve #1’ (not necessarily the #1 pet peeve cuz I’m not sure I could choose that ‘one’).

How has the practice of ‘plugging in’ new talent continued for as long as it has without greater codification of processes that assess the ‘alignment’ of existing and new leaders sufficient to ensure that we will actually achieve improved results sufficient to warrant the change?  A mouthful, I know.  Stated another way, the effective definition and assessment of prospective candidate’s critical success factors in recruiting has remained the purview of a few ‘artists’ vs. the science on which an industry can be expected to deliver persistent value.

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