Are you a CEO "Personality"?

This just in from the AP Wire -

"For Most CEOs, Stardom Doesn't Equal Success"

Superstar chief executives such as Hewlett-Packard Co.'s now ex-CEO Carly Fiorina may earn megapay, grace business magazine covers and hobnob with world leaders, but they may not be the best leaders for their companies.

Academics who study successful CEOs say companies are better off with a little-known CEOs who disdain fame and mind the business.

Consider some superstars for whom ubiquity didn't equal success:

• Donald Trump is the master of the universe on his TV show, but that didn't prevent his casino and hotel business from filing for bankruptcy a second time in November.
• L. Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco International Ltd. graced the cover of BusinessWeek as "The Most Aggressive CEO" and was held up as a model, until his company-sponsored lavish living triggered a government investigation and felony charges.
• And don't forget superagent Michael Ovitz, who was supposed to save Walt Disney Co. from a leaderless future but lasted only 14 months before walking away with a $140 million severance package.

They make Fiorina's fall look mild. Fiorina was pushed out by the board last week after almost six years of keynote speeches, leading pep rallies and flights on the corporate jet, for personal and professional trips.

"She was spending more time in front a video camera than she was with her people," said Warren Bennis, founding chairman of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California.

The company's board signaled that it agrees.

Patricia C. Dunn, whom the company appointed as interim non-executive chairman, said the job, in the future, would be "very reliant on hands-on execution."

Translation: The next CEO will spend less time in the spotlight and more time visiting customers, talking to workers and crunching numbers.

A model for the company's next CEO may be International Business Machines Inc. CEO Samuel J. Palmisano, who joined the company in 1973. If Fiorina is viewed as flashy, Palmisano is seen as tweedy. While she became the public face of HP, Palmisano rarely gives interviews.

Some measure of fame may be unavoidable for the CEO of a high-profile company. But other famous CEOs, like Apple Computer Inc.'s Steve Jobs, have tried to create a cult following for products, not themselves.

Could having a famous executive hurt a company? Some research suggests it might.

Ulrike M. Malmendier, an assistant professor of finance at Stanford University's graduate school of business, studied CEOs who made lists of best managers and found many afterward extracted higher compensation while spending more time and effort on outside activities, such as writing books."

The companies of superstar CEOs subsequently underperform," Malmendier wrote, with both the stock and return on assets lagging peers.

James T. Hamilton at Duke University and Richard Zeckhauser at Harvard University found that 20 percent of chief executives generate 80 percent of media coverage.

They found no statistically significant difference in average shareholder returns between companies with a celebrity CEO and other companies.

But they did find that chief executives who generate soft news stories, articles that contain words such as "personality," "married," "divorced," "smile," "style" and "wife," were more likely to be charged later with evading regulations or misusing company resources than other CEOs.

Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune

Question: Is your ego driving your leadership style a bit too much?

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