Redefining Leadership to Reinvent Success

Here’s an all-too-common business scenario: A seemingly bright and charismatic CEO has a good run at a company. The numbers look good. In fact, most of the external indicators of success look good. That is why the news that the board has decided to dump this particular CEO is met with surprise. What happened? What went wrong?

The problem in this case has a lot to do with the way performance is evaluated. Can a CEO talk a good game? Can he or she put up short-term numbers that will make people happy, at least temporarily? Even if these indicators are positive, a CEO might still be presiding over a culture that is broken. 

So better questions to ask should involve whether the CEO has invested in the people and the culture of the company. If the answer is no, sooner or later cracks will show. 

In the video below, Fred Hassan, Chairman of the Board of Bausch & Lomb and the author of Reinvent: A Leader’s Playbook for Success, offer his insights into how to evaluate a leader in ways that go beyond the numbers. 

Watch the video here:

According to Hassan, the way to evaluate leadership is to look for a few signs that go beyond the numbers. There are lots of ways to make numbers look better after all, such as short-term cost cutting and what Hassan calls “milking what you have at this time.”

Is a CEO promoting aggressive selling or nurturing long-term relationships with customers? These are the types fo signals that will tell you the real health of a company and its long-term outlook. 

In his book, Reinvent, Hassan, an expert in turning around businesses, offers more practical advice on ways to reinvent the culture, attitudes and behaviors of organizations. 

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