Are we living in a post-CEO world?
This is a particularly timely question, and not just because I pose it not long after the loss of tech pioneer and visionary Steve Jobs. The death of Apple's (AAPL) core innovator has been met with widespread despair, because many believe he was the singular driving force behind the company. Yet the idea that a CEO is the only person within a business who has the ability to change the world is daunting and unfair. For such a concept to be the model for American innovation is a risky bet.
It's time for our thinking to evolve. Entire industries -- publishing, finance, automotive, and real estate, to name a few -- and even entire nations are changing. As once-mighty economies suffer and emerging players on the world stage both compete and collaborate with them, and as new business models, often centered around software and services, take the place of old ones, the world is becoming more complex. The world's chief executives will be increasingly hard-pressed to go it alone as leaders. Only by building and maintaining a strong, flexible, diverse, and solidly aligned leadership team will they be able to face the challenges ahead.
In a 2010 survey of more than 1,500 global CEOs, IBM (IBM) found that 79% of chief executives anticipate that they will face greater complexity in the future than they do today. This stunning statistic suggests that the opinions, ideas, and experience of a single leader might not be sufficient for successfully navigating an organization in the years ahead. In fact, a 2011 IBM C-suite survey of more than 3,000 chief information officers worldwide concluded that CEOs and CIOs are more aligned than ever before and are using IT innovation to drive business results.
IBM's findings suggest that even if team leadership isn't currently a management goal, group versus solo decision-making is increasingly necessary and falling into place.
It's worth noting that IBM is a perennial practitioner of team leadership. In its 100 years, the company has built a robust executive management team, which has helped it to thrive even after charismatic CEO Lou Gerstner left the business. When Gerstner, who is credited with the company's turnaround, departed in 2002, many people at IBM feared a leadership void similar to that left by Jobs, who stepped down as CEO of Apple shortly before his death, at the company's zenith of market valuation and cultural influence.
But in the post-Gerstner era, IBM continues to be a juggernaut—even rising above Microsoft (MSFT) in market capitalization this year for the first time since 1996. Big Blue is buoyed by its corporate culture and values, which for a long time have been conducive to team leadership. For example, the recent announcement that Virginia Rometty will succeed Sam Palmisano as president and CEO in January did not come as a surprise to the business world. IBM has a history of cultivating strong senior officials to support its chief executives, making not only successions, but also day-to-day operations smooth.
