> Only a minority are able to cross industries successfully, the majority fail miserably.
Now analyze that a little deeper: How do we know they were successful before they tried to cross industries? Solely because the company they were CEO of did well while they were CEO?
Absent a fairly egregious set of drastic changes (eg, Musk's Twitter), the success or failure of a company is both much more complicated than the contributions of any one person, including the CEO, and a trailing indicator. It is very easy for a CEO to make changes that will not be fully felt—for better or for worse—for years after they "step down to spend more time with their families".
We do not have good metrics for successful leadership. We just don't. And despite this, we have whole subcultures that have grown up around the idea that these people, who are often actively detrimental to the organizations they manage, are geniuses singularly responsible for the company's many-million-dollar (or even many-billion-dollar) profits.
Now analyze that a little deeper: How do we know they were successful before they tried to cross industries? Solely because the company they were CEO of did well while they were CEO?
Absent a fairly egregious set of drastic changes (eg, Musk's Twitter), the success or failure of a company is both much more complicated than the contributions of any one person, including the CEO, and a trailing indicator. It is very easy for a CEO to make changes that will not be fully felt—for better or for worse—for years after they "step down to spend more time with their families".
We do not have good metrics for successful leadership. We just don't. And despite this, we have whole subcultures that have grown up around the idea that these people, who are often actively detrimental to the organizations they manage, are geniuses singularly responsible for the company's many-million-dollar (or even many-billion-dollar) profits.