What it takes to be a CEO in the 2020s
The rules of management are being ripped up. Bosses need to adapt
ON PAPER THIS is a golden age for bosses. Chief executives have vast power. The 500 people who run America’s largest listed firms hold sway over 26m staff. Profits are high and the economy is purring. The pay is fantastic: the median of those CEOs pockets $13m a year. Sundar Pichai at Alphabet has just got a deal worth up to $246m by 2023. The risks are tolerable: your chances of being fired or retiring in any year are about 10%. CEOs often get away with a dreadful performance. In April Ginni Rometty will stand down from IBM after eight years in which Big Blue’s shares have trailed the stockmarket by 202%. Adam Neumann got high in private jets and lost $4bn before being ousted from WeWork last year. The only big drawback is all those meetings, which eat up two-thirds of the typical boss’s working hours.
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Meet the new boss”
From the February 8th 2020 edition
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