Customer Reviews

Why CEO's Fail: The 11 Behaviors That Can Derail Your Climb to the Top and How to Manage Them

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read this book in one shot - on the plane to New York. I'm not a CEO, not sure I aspire to be but am definitely on my way up the corporate ladder. I found this book extremely useful in providing tools I can use right away to "check myself" in the face of a high stress situation (which happens to be everyday).
It was a quick read, provided relevant stories I could identify with, and was a little scary how many of derailer traits I could see in myself.

Dotlich and Cairo have written the book that every leader should be required to read. At the top of the company, it's hard to keep yourself in check and can be even harder to get people to be straight with you about your annoying behaviors that are getting in the way. This book provides great tools to do that, and makes its point about why it is imperative that you pay attention and develop ways to manage your derailers with some very poignant stories.

Why CEOs Fail identifies 11 traits that all have one thing in commen. These traits, in moderation, can help managers be successful. But, taken to an extreme, can destroy a career.

The authors provide examples of people suffering from each derailer and then provide diagnostic tools to help you identify whether you suffer from the derailer and advice to help you manage the derailers that you do have.

The descriptions and the advice are excellent, but the treatment is a little shallow. So, if your derailer manifests itself in some way other than the 'classic' pattern you may not recognize it from the information in the text. And, if you decide you have a derailer, you may need to look elsewhere for more detailed advice about how to work through it.

Overall though, the book was a fun, thought-provoking read. It caused me to think a bit about my weaknesses as a manager and I had a chance to see what derailers I could recognize in others!

A must-read for all leaders at or on their way to the top. Dotlich and Cairo help the reader to recognize the signs and symptoms of potentially derailing behaviors, and -- most importantly -- show us how to manage them before they derail us completely. The tools provided are simple, direct, and immediately applicable. After over 30 years in the workplace, I've finally found a book that has helped me understand my own behavior and that of my colleagues -- a book that challenges me to ask myself: "Have I crossed the line?"

Like some other reviewers, I'm not a CEO. I have often thought of starting my own business, though, and was drawn to the title of this book with that in mind. This book is written much better than most business books: it cuts to the chase, gives good examples, and doesn't go on and on about simple concepts as if you were too stupid to get it the first time. It breaks failure down to 11 mentalities that derail CEOs in their rise to (or fall from) the top. This is great advice for ANY manager or executive, and a quick read too. I take much of this advice to heart when I manage others in my current job. A must read!

The basis of the book is very important to every leader of a department, division or company. The idea of looking at what traits may derail your career is critical. The only fault I found with the book was that the authors were a bit thin on real life examples. If they worked with the hundreds (possibly thousands) of executives that they claimed they worked with, they should have had a lot more examples and deeper ones at that. Real life examples provide insights to the reader and the "ah ha" moments when you recognize the described derailer. This book just did not provide enough of those and so you wonder, are these really derailers?

Those who write software are used to the notion of anti-pattern: it is frequently easier to show what not to do than to explain the best practices.
This is the equivalent for management.
Insightful.

We used this in a leadership training course sponsored by my company -- we started with a "derailer survey" where we answered questions and the consultant/coaches provided us with degrees of risk that we could exhibit any of these derailers. When reading the book, it was powerful to know what my actual derailers are and be able to get strategies for how to manage them. I also found that those of us in the class became more aware of what the others' derailers are and how it is great to pair someone with one set of derailers with someone with complimentary derailers to best manage them at the organizational level.

Fundamentally, derailers are generally wonderful traits until they "go bad" (example: self confidence is great and can take you far, but if it goes beyond into arrogance it becomes a derailer).

I highly recommend this to anyone in management -- the better you know and understand yourself, the more effective you can be. I KNEW what my derailers were, I just was not managing them. Now I get why they are such a problem and am finding it easier to temper them.

This book details negative traits exhibited by top tier CEO's, traits that undermined them and often lead to their downfall. But these traits also exist in ordinary citizens charged with any type of responsibility. From housewives, parents, sales personnel, managers, teachers, literally, anyone in a position of authority can exhibit these behaviors. Abstracting the fundamental ideas and applying them to ourselves and others can easily increase our awareness and broaden our understanding of of a very specific type of human behavior: the use and abuse of power.

As experienced CEO coaches, Dotlich and Cairo have distilled their experience into an interesting premise: Business leaders fail primarily from internal factors, not external ones. Using a combination of high profile cases and examples from their own practice, they front the theory that 11 personality traits (referred to as "derailers") are primarily responsible for the demise of promising or previously successful leaders.
Virtually all of these traits have a positive aspect, and often are initially responsible for a leader's upward progression. It is when they are overplayed that they tend to extend into weakness - with potentially drastic effect. The primary culprits seem to be reaction to stressful situations, loss of situational awareness, or an unwillingness to participate in meaningful self-appraisal.
Chapter format is consistent, with one derailer covered in each and a final chapter on why CEOs succeed. Interspersed with the case studies are questions and example behaviors to determine "Have you crossed the line?" signs and symptoms, and recommended courses of action.
I found the book to be a sound primer, but written at a superficial level. The case studies are thin and there is a constant undertone that suggests the reader will benefit from personal coaching. Still, for anyone in a leadership capacity with an interest in examining his or her behavioral tendencies, it can be a powerful first step in the process. The book is a fast first read and contains enough meat to hold attention on a more detailed second pass.