DESCRIPTION:

As MBA students get ready to leave HBS, it can be valuable for them to consider not only the immediate benefits of their job choices but also longer-term opportunities and aspirations. How can they be ready and able to succeed in a CEO role, and will that include building a lasting institution that makes a significant impact on the world?

This course will feature case discussions about CEOs of several main types from several main pathways (e.g., founders, loyalists, outsiders, empire builders), at several key career points (early and looking forward, or later and looking back), from several continents, in organizations that must overcome business challenges while seeking purpose and significance. Students will consider perils, pitfalls, and blind spots and how they can be overcome in order to meet organizational objectives. The course will include in-class dialogues with CEOs about their dilemmas and choices. It will provide opportunities for self-reflection. The course will be useful for “instant CEOs” such as founders as well as “someday CEOs,” as students see how early choices shape later possibilities. It will also equip students with insights that will make them better consultants, investors, board members, partners, or team members for CEOs.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• To deepen understanding of the unique responsibilities of chief executives - the experiences and constraints that come with being at the “top,” and both the privileges and dilemmas. Balancing the leader as a private person with his/her own history and preferences with the demands of public representation of the institution. Choices likely to confront CEOs in a turbulent world, and what accounts for how they resolve the change challenges they must overcome.

• To gain a lifecycle perspective on being a CEO, starting with guiding new enterprises as self-anointed “instant CEOs.” After entrepreneurs/founders move from idea generators to developing a venture, how they fumble or thrive as CEOs. To gain insight into how early choices shape later career paths – the nature of imprinting and path dependency. What it means to do a job vs. find a mission.

• To learn about characteristics of “rent-a-CEOs” and “CEOs by parachute” and when they are effective. To contrast them with loyalists and caretakers who address problems with institutional as well as financial logic. When and whether there an “insider’s advantage.” How outsiders can succeed as institution-building CEOs. The skills and sensibilities involved in creating both success and significance.

• To develop and enhance skills in spotting perils, pitfalls, and blind spots. Enhanced ability to develop personal strategies for overcoming them. Questions of commitment and accountability and what difference they make in CEO choices.

• To encourage aspirations to take on major leadership responsibility, as a CEO or teammate for the CEO, and find role models and life lessons.

Modules will feature cases moving through the lifecycle:

1.Creators – entrepreneur founders

2.Outsiders – serial CEOs and organizational difference

3.Empire Builders – institutions and legacies

Class guests will include numerous CEOs featured in the cases, for dialogue and first-hand insights.

CAREER OBJECTIVES:

The course will provide knowledge and tools for several career paths:

• a jumpstart for those expecting to be CEOs in the near future (e.g., as founders in new ventures or as successors in family businesses)

• tools for consultants and private equity investors who will be working with CEOs to improve their company’s performance

• preparation for members of boards of directors that select and assess CEO’s

Self-reflection: The course will be helpful for students exploring if and when they will be ready for the role and responsibilities of CEOs at some point in their careers. It can provide guidance for mission-oriented students seeking to grow institutions that make a positive difference.

PROPOSED SCHEDULE:

Weekly, 2-hour block

EXAMPLES OF CASES AND SESSIONS:

Creators:

“Ecofi and its Traveling Plumbers: Deploying Blue Collar Workers for Green Impact.” (new case) Featuring Richard Lamondin and his brother, who bootstrapped the development of service company ecofi into a national award-winning SME with no outside money and a hands-on approach but a clear mission to address climate change. With growth of ecofi and change in the external environment, Lamondin grapples with whether his founding assumptions can hold and whether he can find within himself the skills and desires to lead ecofi into its next phase.

“Blue Frontier: Disrupting Air Conditioning.” Featuring Daniel Betts whose approach contrasts sharply with Lamodins’. Betts, a scientist who invented a highly effective new product, wants to grow a giant global industry-changing/industry-leading company. He has attracted major venture capital, large commercial customers, and the attention of competitors. How can he grow himself to make appropriate choices of strategy, partners, and teams to make the leap.

“’The Wheels on the Bus’ Go Electric: Highland Electric Fleets.” Depending on time, this could be added as a creator case or be designed to accompany Blue Frontier. Although Duncan McIntyre is CEO of a services company that sells fleets to government purchasers, he has many things in common with Daniel Betts, but the few things that are different make for a valuable contrast as creators with big aspirations tackle large entrenched systems.

Outsiders:

“Two Misses and a Hit.” (Case under development.) Featuring three women CEOs in prominent companies who start as outsiders both in terms of the company and industry and also because they are the first to break gender barriers in the industry. The companies were in the midst of turbulent industry change and turned to outsiders to lead a transformation. Two of them had mixed results; a third was highly successful and was also mission-driven; she succeeded in strengthening an institution while enabling change to fit the times. The case permits exploration of how to deal with being different from others in the company and overcome barriers stemming from it. It then focuses attention on CEO behaviors that build support and mobilize executives and employees during a transformation that deal with both short-term needs and long-term mission.

“Monique Leroux at Desjardin,” successful transformational CEO of a Canadian financial cooperative, could also be used as a stand-alone case. She was initially an outsider on a number of dimensions, became CFO, then ran for CEO (the mode in a cooperative) even though not the chosen successor. She was elected because she embraced a return to founding values and then empowered employees to innovate while returning local units to a sense of significance. Following 8 years as CEO, and widely considered the most powerful woman in Canada, she became a global spokesperson for the cooperative movement, which included major banks and good companies worldwide.

“The Serial CEO” (in development based on a series of existing cases). Featuring a protagonist who starts his career as a consultant but soon becomes a serial CEO hired in from outside. He grows and then sells two of the companies he headed. In each instance, he takes a senior management position at the top of the acquiring company where he feels he has a mandate to lead change. But in both instances he is passed over as a successor to the current CEO. Why? What’s different about being in charge or being a subordinate? What helps him be effective when solely in charge but less effective as another contender inside a big company?

Empire Builders:

“Publicis Groupe” case series excerpts show long-time CEO Maurice Levy from his early days as a committed employee devoted to the vision of the founder and ultimately role to succeed him in both propelling industry success and proving that a French company could become of global giant and survive/thrive in the midst of industry upheaval. He formed a failed alliance with an American company and then rebounded through a series of high-profile acquisitions which made other CEOs his subordinates and yet treated them as equals. His key skills in relationship building and his personal charm and humility provide a values-drive model of a CEO who outlasts competitors. It also shows what he looks for in a successor and why he might have clung to power.

“Haier: Building a Chinese Giant.” Long-time Chairman Zhang Rumin led a shoddy refrigerator factory in Quindao, China, to become a giant in China and then around the world. He started during the Cultural Revolution in China yet always looked to world models of quality. While making major acquisitions, and with no formal higher education, he developed a path-breaking international management model that empowered employees to become entrepreneurs within the company. We will also see how his consistent philosophy was used to turn around GE Appliances, which he acquired from General Electric in recent years. The case shows how personal beliefs can guide a CEO during many difficult times and help the CEO build a great institution with lessons for other leaders.

“Akin Ongor’s Journey.” As CEO of Garanti Bank, Akin Ongor led the Turkey-based bank to become a European model, while he is one of the most-admired people in the country. When he stepped down, he sought to create a leadership institute for the Middle East. He thinks he has the parts lined up, but he stumbles. This case offers the chance to analyze why and how success at the top produces blind spots and creates traps that make it hard for a successful CEO to exercise leadership outside of the company. It also shows a CEO working with his wife and family on more feasible projects after he leaves the bank. This invites students to take a long-term view of their careers and personal lives.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

• Active participation

• Two one-page memos, due at sessions 3 and 5

• Reflective paper (6-8 pages). Using AI to find and query role models that fit the students’ interest, the paper will then require students to write about themselves, their skills and aspirations and how they plan to apply course learnings and role model learnings in their career path. The paper topic will be used as the basis for a possible class presentation in the last class.