Business Leaders on Short Time - When CEOs' Stories Balloon Bigger than Their Companies', From Bob Iger to David Solomon

 Business public relations is bifurcating. 

On the one hand there are the titans such Elon Musk who demand to be the story. And they can get away with that. Their moves, both online and offline, provide endless entertainment. 

On the other hand there are the CEOs who have been the story and that hasn't been going well. They range from Disney's Bob Iger to Goldman Sachs' David Solomon. They could be distracting from the rest of the corporation's talent and from the products and services. 

Once the role model for leadership (who hasn't read his book "The Ride of a Lifetme") Iger is now vulnerable to second guessing and downright criticism by influential media. For example, Financial Times presents the issue of succession, which gave us Bob Chapek, as botched. Next time Iger better do that and other seminal things right or he will blow his legacy. However, his job per se seems solid as of this writing. 

Not your usual Big Banking head Solomon had been outsized. And we enjoyed it. Past tense. Now, as this coverage today on Insider captures, he is being vilified from a broad range of constituents. No one is listening to his few defenders who, for instance, make the analogy between his DJing and CEO golfing. Come on, the golf course is a standard setting for new business development and upselling to current clients. DJing is different. 

The solution is not for business leaders to go low-profile. They have been put in those jobs because they are the right front people in this PR-addicted era. The acceptable and effective approach is, well, the middle way: Be out there but not exclusively. Make it clear that success has many mothers and fathers.

That's the MO of high-profile Brad Karp, chair of law firm Paul Weiss. He seems to make it his business for other stars to twinkle brightly. Incidentally, that strategy includes female partners such as Loretta Lynch and Karen Dunn. Sharing the spotliight seems to have helped Paul Weiss poach big names such as Rob Kindler from Morgan Stanley.

In addition, follow LinkedIn. Founder of Edelman Public Relations firm Richard Edelman allows others to suck up plenty of oxygen. An example is Tony Silva, General Manager, Public Sector. On that professional online network Silva has been a thought leader.

There is also beloved institution O'Dwyer's. The late founder Jack O'Dwyer also chatted up emloyees such as the publication Editor-in-Chief Kevin McCauley. Jack had strong opinions, but never about himself. That's why lunch with him was the hot ticket in town (Mid Manhattan).

Meanwhile there is the reality that the average tenure of business executives is 4.9 years, documents M&A Executive Search.  Obviously, from the get-go they could be doomed to be on short time. 

To escape that fate requires skillful management of their brand, both internally and externally. They have to get the never-ending longing of most human beings since Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise. That is to feel very important. 

That was part of the secret sauce Lee Iacocca stirred together to save Chrysler in the early 1980s. He told the America that wanted to make him US President this: The employees of the auto company were the real heroes. They came into work not knowing if there would be work. About 50,000 American jobs had been saved. Right now most business leaders have to worry about saving their own jobs. 

Disclaimer: 

This op-ed does not imply that any executive discussed such as Bob Iger and David Solomon is especially vulnerable to job loss. The point is: All executives face new kinds of employment threats, especially from activist investors. Ham-handed branding could be the tipping point. Executives must assume they are on short time.

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