Is the celebrity CEO dead? Lets hopes so.

October 20, 2009 · Filed Under Business · 1 Comment 

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Recently I saw an article about how the fact that there are not many celebrity ceo’s left has had an impact on the publishing industry. Last big celebrity CEO was Jack Welch. There is still Bill Gates and you could possibly count Warren Buffet. But Jack Welch retired a number of years ago.  Whilst the current decline of the celebrity ceo has had a significant impact on the publishing industry the question of leadership is one which intrigues me.

Peter Drucker said “no institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it”.

How could I argue with Peter Drucker. To me leadership is about creating the environment for everybody to succeed. It is not about being the celebrity to the world. The effective leader focuses on everybody else and not him or herself. They focus on what they can control which is the vision of the business, creating the environment to allow others to succeed, being decisive and being dedicated to delivering value to employees and customers.

Businesses with effective leaders are boring. They don’t grandstand. They want all their team to be engaged in creating and delivering value.

So the businesses with the most effective leaders are often growing and developing under our noses, quietly and efficiently without fanfare.

I would love to hear from you of businesses large and small who you believe are being effectively lead.

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