Articles from the author

Leadership skills can be developed

“Wall Street knows only two emotions, greed and fear.” I remember being told by an investment banker during that peak of “irrational exuberance” that became the dotcom boom and crash half a decade or so ago.

For as long as I can remember I have been looking for executives with "leadership" qualities, as if 'leadership' were the silver bullet to fix all manner of corporate challenges.

The candidate sitting in front of you fulfils the technical requirements for the job. You have assured yourself of that. Unfortunately, that is perhaps the easiest part of the recruitment process.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression," Winston Churchill is reported to have said. That his statement is so obviously true doesn't alter the fact that its wisdom is frequently ignored or plain forgotten.

As a child I remember asking my stepfather what the loneliest job in the world was. We came up with a pretty good list as I remember.

Test your CEO by examining the quality of his or her potential successors. If there is no pool of potential candidates then send him to the bottom of the class.

Pay them enough and they will stay. If they do not we can always find someone else to fill their place.

The reality: targeting or networking with headhunters is probably the least likely way to get yourself headhunted.

The cult of the dynamic and aggressive chief executives may have taken a few hits due to the setbacks from the likes of former WorldCom chief Bernie Ebbers, Disney's Michael Eisner and even Martha Stewart.