A CEO's blind ambition.

• Author: Neal, Catherine
• Position: Chief executive officer - Brief article

Kozlowski's weaknesses, his personal failings, and some bad decisions also contributed to the problems at Tyco.

* Kozlowski's unwillingness to pay attention to details, and the delegation of responsibility for details in his life left him vulnerable.

* Kozlowski lost perspective. He was caught up in the amount of money Tyco was earning, in the size of his own compensation, and the possibilities of the bull market of the 1990s. In a 2009 Fortune magazine article, contributor David Kaplan opined that Kozlowski was "... the embodiment of an earlier epoch of corporate greed and personal profligacy, circa a decade ago. Yet ... Kozlowski now looks like small fry in the sea of financial shenanigans." Kaplan was referring to the many...