Red Flags You Won’t See on a CEO’s Resume

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2022

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For a long time, we have believed that strong corporate governance is enough to prevent CEO malfeasance. However, new research shows that the lifestyle behaviors of executives can spell trouble for companies, regardless of the guardrails in place. Aiyesha Dey, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, has investigated executives’ past criminal records and the cost of their homes and automobiles. Her research has linked an individual’s materialism and propensity for rule breaking to fraud, insider trading, and risky business activities. She says that boards and other hiring bodies should pay more attention to personal behavior when picking organizational leaders. Dey wrote the HBR article "When Hiring CEOs, Focus on Character."

Transcript

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0:00.0	So you got the job. Now what? Join me, Eleni Mata, on HBR's new original podcast, New
0:08.1	Here, the Young Professionals Guide to Work, and how to make it work for you. Listen for
0:13.8	free wherever you get your podcasts. Just search New Here. See you there!
0:30.0	Welcome to the HBR IDA cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kurt Nickish.
0:49.3	When you think about it, hiring is an exercise in predicting the future. You're
0:54.3	picturing the outcome you want, and you're finding out if the person you want will
0:58.0	be able to create that future with you. You've got their resume. You talk to
1:02.7	people who've worked with them, and you interview them, ask them their biggest
1:06.4	weakness, and there are those intangibles, that little voice that you realize
1:11.2	later that you should have listened to. All that looms even larger when you're
1:16.0	filling the top job at an organization, the Chief Executive. At stake is the
1:20.9	future of the organization, a future that affects so many people. The perfect
1:25.4	rendezvous of skill set and leadership is elusive. Today's guest has been
1:31.2	reverse-engineering the performances of CEOs, and has found some surprising
1:35.5	correlations between their personal behavior before they were hired, and
1:39.4	their professional record after they were hired. So much so that you may have
1:43.9	never thought to look at these attributes. In fact, many boards don't. Aisha
1:49.0	Day is an associate professor at Harvard Business School, and she wrote the
1:53.0	HBR article, when hiring CEOs focus on character. Aisha is so excited to talk to
1:59.4	you. Thank you, Kurt. Thank you for having me. So, how did you get
2:07.1	interested in studying this? So, you know, the roots of this go way back to my
2:11.8	dissertation. Corporate governance was always of interest to me, and right
	...

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