How to Choose Your Company’s Next CEO
When it comes to finding a successor for a top executive, an “inside outsider” might be the best option. As Harvard Business School Professor Joe Bower explains in his Big Think interview, an incoming CEO should have a sense of what a company is going to have to change as it looks to stay competitive the future. While insiders have probably had a sip or two of the company’s Kool-Aid—and believe in the organization to the extent that it doesn’t need changing—an “inside outsider” can have enough perspective to initiate radical change if needed.
Why have we seen such a dearth of leaders in today’s business world? Bower thinks it stems from the fact that the financial system has drifted away from the industrial and commercial system; the leaders of financial institutions have found they can make a lot of money by building organizations simply comprised of traders.