The dangers in letting coos become an endangered species: the question needs to be asked: is operating witiwiit a chief operating officer increasing risk around leadersh ip transition?

• Author: Bennett, Nathan
• Position: ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP

LEADING A MAJOR CORPORATION has never been a routine task, but a strong argument can be made that the pressures CEOs face today present a particularly daunting set of challenges. One consequence of the tumultuous ride this last dozen years has offered has been a closer scrutiny by stakeholders of all levels of leadership.

Let's start with the board. All members, but particularly board chairs, are now expected to be more actively involved in the company. The chair position is more and more frequently separated from the CEO position and is often filled by someone with deep understanding of the company and its industry.

As the chair has evolved to consist of a separate, knowledgeable, and active executive, the position has itself become much more "hands on."

CEOs who are freed of the chair duties have in turn been encouraged to take advantage of the newly found time to get "closer" to the operations of the company.

A slow but steady decline

Two trends are a natural result of this "found time" on the CEO's calendar. First, CEOs are reporting a broader span of control: with fewer board responsibilities, they sense enough bandwidth to take on more direct reports. Second, it is contributing to the slow but steady decline in the number of large companies deploying a COO role. The changing boundary between the chair and CEO position has created a situation where a more internally focused CEO is potentially a redundant asset with the value added by a COO. COOs have traditionally focused on smooth operations day to day so the CEO was free to focus attention on the board, external constituents, and the future. The changes in the way chairs and CEOs are enacting their jobs has the net result of creating role overlap between the CEO and COO.

Though there are reasons to be encouraged by a. renewed engagement of a CEO, this trend brings with it sonic unintended and potentially risky consequences that to this point are not being thoughtfully addressed. Chief among these risks is the ability of a company to ensure leadership continuity after it chooses to run without a COO. This is because theCOO role has been so effectively used to groom successors--you needn't look further than Tim Cook at Apple. Has there been a more difficult succession to imagine in recent years than to follow Steve Jobs? Cook has done that, and done it in a manner the market has generally recognized and rewarded.

For several years, a decline in thc number of companies with a COO on the...