Business TV Show: PWC HR Expert on the Myth of the CEO

Hear expert business advice from Alexander Pepper, Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, as he explains why the CEO myth exists, and why a hero CEO may not make the problems go away:

“One of the big mistakes I think companies make is thinking its all about the CEO that the charismatic CEO can be brought into rescue a situation and turn it around and make everything alright. It’s a bit like the England football manager; issues tend to be more systemic than that.
Sometimes you need an outsider with some fresh ideas; sometimes symbolically the capital markets expect you to bring in an outsider to bring in some fresh ideas so you have to pay attention to that but its like spending money on training.
You shouldn’t assume that if you bring in a CEO from outside, big hitting CEO with a great reputation all your problems are solved. The world is more complicated than that and some of the most effective companies are ones that have a tradition of promoting their CEOs from within that have got the development programs, the talent management programs to identify people with leadership potential to give them opportunities and you know then to help them rise up to the top.

I guess the sort of the leadership school that everyone talks about is GE. GE has produced some of corporate Americas leading CEOs both for themselves, but also for other companies from those that didn’t get the top job in GE. So they, GE seems to have found a way of creating a talent school of bringing people up through the organisation, identifying those who have got talent.
Finding [the] opportunities for them to grow, moving them up into the top team and then selecting the leaders from that range.”

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