Why do some CEOs fail?

readers@gulfnews.com

It’s a given fact that someone who has reached a top position in a company is qualified for the job. They would have to be educated for the position and have to be experienced, knowledgeable, and ambitious, with a burning desire to excel.

One cannot climb to such a high position, and be the chief executive officer (CEO) of a company without such qualities. However, CEOs also fail, and it is not because they are not smart and lack vision.

CEOs fail because somewhere down the line they lose their way. They become so immersed in their dream that they sever ties with reality. They think they can do it, forgetting that, they cannot do it alone. Getting alienated from the core team, believing in or creating a strategy that no one else understands, refusing to accept facts, are just some of the reasons why CEOs fail.

But I think the reason many CEOs stumble is because they do not have the right people in key areas to help them. An article that Fortune published some 19 years, titled “Why CEOs fail”, written by Ram Charan and Geoffrey Colvin, stated that “intellectual seduction” was a major cause. A CEO believes that by hiring a highly talented person in a key position, failure is impossible, but he fails to remind himself that what happens if that key person fails. And when it happens, he is too shocked to react, so stunned he is by the occurrence.

And then comes the biggest factor; the inability to exercise emotional judgement. They know that a problem exists but they are unable to take the right decision at the right time, to fix it.

■ The reader is a Dubaibased banker.

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