Editor’s Note: James Bailey is a professor and Stacy and Jonathan Hochberg Fellow of Leadership Development at the George Washington University School of Business. The opinions expressed on this commentary are his personal.
Charismatic company leaders appear to repeatedly develop into international cultural icons. They seize the zeitgeist with edifying TED Talks, best-selling autobiographies and social media presences that rival these of rock stars.
For many executives, cultural celebrity is nice branding and an inoculant to cruel P&Ls or disapproving boards of administrators. A shrewd CEO can use Twitter to counter rumors on Wall Street or dodge a public relations nightmare.
But latest disruptions in the tech business recommend that celebrity could have its limits. Elon Musk of Tesla and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, who’ve each fastidiously cultivated public personas, have discovered that international fame shouldn’t be foolproof when authorities investigators come knocking.
In truth, company celebs could discover their renown much more fleeting than different excessive achievers resulting from the stakes and scale. Leading a billion-dollar, worldwide conglomerate via a unstable interval comes with obligations that far outstrip these of authors or actors.
Mostly, the ranks of international celebrities are populated with sports activities stars and entertainers. Here and there, a public servant captures icon status. Think presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama or US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Some scientists have loved the mantel of celebrity (Stephen Hawking and NASA’s Katherine Johnson), however they’re few and much between. The identical holds true for celebrity artists or fashionable writers (J.Okay. Rowling and Stephen King).
Elon Musk smokes weed throughout interview
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NCS Business
In the enterprise world, there have at all times been enigmatic company leaders, however solely a handful — Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Martha Stewart — have develop into cultural icons. They captivate us via larger-than-life personalities or life-changing applied sciences.
The latest swell of enterprise leaders who’ve been remodeled into celebrities might be traced to a quantity of elements.
First, many sports activities figures have been introduced low by scandal (doping and sexual misbehavior). Professional sports activities as an entire have develop into related to greed (prioritizing salaries and bonuses over successful). In the previous, athletes have been seen as heroes, imbued with qualities of sacrifice and braveness. Now, a private mistaken flip (golfer Tiger Woods) can ambush a profession. The public is left upset and unforgiving.
Second, public belief in CEOs has risen because it has fallen in political leaders. While some date the political wariness to Watergate, it appears to have reached a fever pitch on this extremely partisan period. The funeral of the late George H.W. Bush appeared as a lot to mourn the loss of civic management as the passing of the former president.
Third, CEOs have been empowered to vary lanes. The strains between sectors have been blurred. Careers are malleable, and an formidable govt can department out into every thing from tv to politics to sports activities. Meanwhile, the cult of the savvy, no-nonsense enterprise chief thrives in fashionable actuality tv applications reminiscent of Shark Tank.
Finally, social media has develop into omnipresent. Not way back, publicity to CEOs was restricted to a small quantity of conventional enterprise information shops, and protection of executives, even charismatic ones, was virtually totally associated to their corporations.
How that has modified. Today, a whole bunch of media shops, backed by social media platforms, cowl each aspect of the financial system and enterprise. Gossip, private issues and inner tensions have turned the enterprise information into excessive drama.
But celebrity comes with peril. Reputations constructed on social media can fall to a well-aimed tweet or poisonous put up. The fame that brings public consideration turns a celebrity CEO right into a goal. The legislation of unintended penalties weighs closely on the celebrity CEO dealing with shareholders and workers.
Joining the ranks of celebrity CEOs has gotten lots simpler. But staying in the good graces of a fickle public might be arduous, even for the most charismatic chief govt. The greatest rule of thumb for formidable leaders is to find the positive line between celebrity and notoriety — after which work time beyond regulation to remain on the proper aspect of the line. Former President Obama had a motto: Don’t do silly stuff. That’s not a nasty place to begin for celebrity CEOs.