Showdown for the top job: Co-chief executive arrangements are a prescription for conflict and indecision.

• Author: Rockefeller, David
• Position: Endnote

David Rockefeller retired as chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank in 1981 after 35 years of service with the organization. In this article he recounts a leadership crisis faced earlier in his career when, as the bank's vice chairman, he and the bank's president were front-runners in the board's selection of the next chief executive.

JACK MCCLOY had been scheduled to retire in March 1960, but the board was divided on the choice of his successor and asked him to stay through the end of the year while they sorted things out. From the board's perspective, George Champion was the logical choice as CEO. He was 56, eleven years my senior, and had been with the bank since the late 1920s.

I, on the other hand, was relatively young, and many on the board did not consider me a "real banker." My principal responsibilities had been in management and marketing. I had never been a line credit officer, although, unlike Winthrop Aldrich and Jack McCloy, who became chief executives with very little knowledge of the inner workings of banking, I had spent 14 years immersed in the operations of Chase and had encouraged a number of innovative changes. A large majority of the board recognized that policy changes of the kind I had been pushing were necessary and inevitable. They seemed to appreciate my creativity, but apparently they wanted a chairman with a solid record in credit and lending, areas where George obviously excelled.

I have little doubt that a majority of the board would have jumped at the chance of appointing George as chairman and chief executive if I was willing to stay on in a subordinate position. Frankly, I was not. I had worked with George for 14 years -- the last four in a roughly equal position -- and I was convinced that if he had sole responsibility, he would lead the bank in a direction that would prevent Chase from becoming a serious force in international banking. I made it clear to board members who sounded me out, particularly J. Richardson (Dick) Dilworth and Jack McCloy, that I would leave the bank if the board chose to give George full and unchecked authority.

My response created a difficult dilemma. The directors were not prepared to make me chairman and chief executive. Had they done so, George would have resigned, a risk no one was prepared to run. Faced with a showdown between George and me, the board blinked. They suggested a face-saving compromise: George would become chairman, and I would be president, but we would be...