Bob Lutz on board leadership.

PositionDIRECTOR MEMOIR - Interview

This is a cheeky question, but would the title of your book, Icons and Idiots, be an apt description of the average board of directors?

A very wise question. My experience says, "Yes!"

You do a good job identifying the characteristics that make for good leaders. What is the most important leadership skill to be a good corporate director?

Experience.

The most important skill to be an effective board chairman?

Relentless drive for excellence.

You describe how you have run up against "imposter syndrome" in the executive ranks. ["A condition wherein the victim can hardly believe that his poor, pathetic, underexperienced self has actually attained this highest rank possible."] Some board members might be prone to this personality defect.

They certainly are, as most lack knowledge of that particular business. I suffer from it on most boards that, for some reason, wanted me!

You are an admitted skeptic in your book with doing long-range planning so far out that you can "overdefine" a future that may never occur. Is the short-range vs. long-range argument--i.e., the horizon that a board should allow management to have--a canard?

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