CEO 3.0

Today's NY Times has an interesting article on the evolution of what it takes to be a successful CEO...

The first iteration made its mark in the 1990s, as chief executives like Sanford I. Weill, Gerald M. Levin, John F. Welch Jr. and Michael Eisner built empires, not to mention their profiles, at the companies they ran: Citigroup, Time Warner, GE and Disney.

When the shares deflated earlier this decade after the burst of the tech bubble and various corporate scandals, a new cadre moved in: the Fix-it Men. They were lower-key leaders like Charles O. Prince III of Citigroup and Richard D. Parsons of Time Warner, whose job it was to repair the excesses and mistakes of their predecessors.

Now, management experts and longtime watchers of corporate America say the current environment demands, and is attracting, yet another kind of chief executive: the team builder.

This theme is very consistent with one raised by Carly Fiorina in a speech I saw last month. It's also interesting to note how often the points she made in her speech are being reiterated by others. Here's another example. While at HP, maybe she knew she what she was talking about after all.