christopherhildreth

Since 1998, Meg Whitman has been at the helm of eBay as CEO. In her early days as CEO of the company, Meg stated that a CEO should not serve for longer than 10 years. With her own 10th anniversary coming up, people are wondering what she will do. Speculation serves no ones interest, but contemplation does.

The fascinating idea of a CEO only needing to serve for 10 years is something that deserves much more space than I can give it, but I can offer a few ideas.

One: Setting a timetable for ones leaving gives a sense of urgency to unfulfilled desires and obligations to be performed before leaving. The result would be increased focus and, understandably, increased results.

Two: Knowing when you will vacate a position, puts you in a marvelous spot for having time to find a replacement and allows for the company itself to not miss a beat recovering from a surprise exit and subsequent shell-shock.

Three: Perhaps the greatest aspect of having a path set for going off the company stage is that you as CEO can actually enjoy your position. You are not trying to “hold on” to power. You and everyone else knows when you will be going and  so the temperature on the corporate side should be relatively cooler than if no one knew.

Some things to ponder and think about while we all wait and see what Meg will actually do.

This entry was posted on March 9, 2008 at 9:15 pm and is filed under Cultural Ideas, Influence. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.