Our Attention to the CEO

There is an old saying that a fish rots from the head. This especially rings true when it comes to the effect that a 'bad' CEO can have on not only his or her company, but on their entire industry.

Recently, there has been a growing pattern of CEOs who resign to special interest groups' pressure to center their business about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).  It's not a mystery why CEOs quickly embrace the activists and their initiatives: They simply do not want to appear as the "greedy, oppressive, environment-killing capitalist pig”. They would rather appear to be the selfless hero who can do it all for everyone. Why not? There is no immediate downside for them. The negative ramifications of their CSR actions may not become apparent for years, and by then they will be long gone and enjoying the spoils of their found popularity at the cost of their company. We recently witnessed this by the appointment of Goldman Sachs's Hank Paulson to Secretary of the Treasury after his generous donation of a huge tract of Goldman Sachs’s land in Chile to a special interest environmental group. Today’s CEO realizes that he need-not suffer from the dark stigma painted by special interests akin to Rockefeller or JP Morgan. They have been handed an opportunity to enjoy a hero's legacy by just saying yes to activist groups.

Free Enterpriser stresses that the CEOs who focus on running their companies properly are the true heroes. There is nothing to be gained by CEOs who fancy the notion that the company is their personal social playground. The CEO’s office is not the place where the leader of a company asserts their social awareness. Rouge, socially-aware, CEOs are working for themselves, not for their companies. When CEOs use their position of power and leadership to...