In this article Morton Hansen and Herminia Ibarra ask the business world “Do we celebrate the wrong CEO’s?”
If we substitute church world for business world, we might ask “Do we celebrate the wrong pastors?” Two excerpts:If we asked you to make a list of the top 50 performing CEOs in the world, who would you name? Jeffrey Immelt? Jamie Dimon? Carols Ghosn? They’re on your list? They shouldn’t be.
What about Bart Becht? John Martin? John Lau? Not on your list? They should be. Becht, of Reckitt-Benckiser, Martin, of Gilead Sciences, and Lau, of Husky Energy have had strong performance year after year, but yet they’re not well known outside their industries. They’re among the “quiet CEOs” getting the job done, and well. Immelt (GE), Dimon (JP Morgan Chase) and Ghosn (Renault-Nissan) get lots of attention in the business press. CEOs like them are often labeled as “most admired” or highest paid. Typically, they’re charismatic leaders, but seldom are they actually measured on overall performance. This matters. After all, where do our leadership models and leadership lessons come from? We may just be learning from the most admired, but not the best-performing leaders.
The [Top 100 CEO] list is beautifully varied and surprising. And yet, we still flock to the same few big-time celebrity CEOs for our wisdom on leadership and growth. What does that say about us as a business community? Maybe we’re over-valuing things that well-known CEOs do well (getting on magazine covers, talking about their next big moves, explaining short-term results) and over-looking what less headline grabbing but better-performing CEOs do well which is focus on building value long-term. Maybe it’s time to redirect our attention and start celebrating and learning from a different crop of CEOs, starting with the ones listed here.
How many of the Church’s Top 100 pastors are on God’s Top 100 list? How many on God’s Top 100 list are known beyond their own churches?