a dramatic paradigm shift has been witnessed in the scale and style of business management in the last two decades. Without exception, the average young executive in his mid-thirties seems to be utterly impatient to hit the deck and become a CEO by the morrow. It instantly reminds one of physically challenged Wilma Rudolph who struck gold by clocking eleven seconds to run her hundred meters in the 1960 Rome Olympics. In later years she joked: She could run fast, she said because as a child in a poor family with limited food, she had to beat 18 other children in the Rudolph household to get to the dining table first. If this poignant joke is a justification for the young executives in a hurry - so be it. After all, an organisation may have 18 Vice-Presidents but just the one CEO. In a scenario, such as this, search and recruitment of CEOs assumes paramount importance. Let us begin with the expected qualities or the desirable prerequisites to become a CEO. The CEO should be a performance driven positive thinker who leads by examples and treats leadership as a task to be performed and not a status to be enjoyed. He is an entrepreneur capable of taking risks without being risky. Essentially a daytime visionary and not a night time dreamer, who knows well and truly how long to cling and when to quit. Ofcourse, this breed is rare but they are the revered and fortunate few who receive the ceremonial 21 gun farewell salute unlike most who make a pathetic back door exit in their chauffeur-less limousines. Most HR pundits feel that the tenure of a CEO should be limited to four years and may stretch, at best, by another four years on the lines of the American President. They argue that indefinite tenure renders a CEO complacent. Thereafter, the indolent chief is surrounded by apparently unalarming sycophants, frightened courtiers and seemingly
unambitious yes-men. Prolonged tenure also results
in mass exodus of aspiring and talented executives seeking greener pastures leaving the organisation to survive in sublime mediocrity. In family run big business houses with huge turnovers, it is invariably the dynastic rule where inheritance outsmarts competence hands down and the coronated successor is always some one from the family. It is rumoured that most public sector CEOs are appointed with a specific understanding that they be merely line toeing generals. In the process, they have limited authority and freedom but unlimited tenure. A management student compared these CEOs with the Moghul period obsolete cannons with a subtle pun hire you may but fire you cannot. Barring the handpicked multinationals, in other business houses, the search and combing operation for the CEOs takes place in management workshops, professional business seminars, chamber meetings and very often to glamourise the appointment the deal is finally closed over a game of golf where the incumbent is asked to take charge much before the close of the 18th hole. Should CEOs be groomed from within? Some experts do prescribe this as a viable and attractive alternative. For this purpose, they suggest a bold and visible retirement chart for key position holders in the organisation and a firmly planted, well branching out succession tree. Inspired by Luigi Pirandellos famous play Sei personaggi in circa dautore(Six characters in search of an author), Frank Rovenskropt authored his satirical fiction entitled In search of a CEO. In the penultimate chapter of the book he finally abandons his hunt for a CEO well realising that the peak is too high for a mortal to scale. According to him, the coveted summit is the exclusive domain of either the reptiles or the eagles. Alarmed? Never be. After all, business means continuity and so be the search for the CEOs.
The author was a practising manager and has held senior