世界上没有CEO超人

    我们都愿意相信超级英雄神话。对于企业领导者，这意味着期待和责任。CEO们掌控着众多资金，我们给他们的薪水也足够高，我们像对待明星一样捧着他们——而且也愿意相信，他们值得得到这样的待遇。

    德鲁克管理学院（The Drucker Institute）的董事总经理扎可里·弗斯特说，企业界的“明星文化或许已经达到了巅峰”。

    创造一位明星CEO需要数项因素。首先，高调的企业领导者往往都知长袖善舞，很多人已习惯成为关注的焦点。其次，员工、市场和媒体都希望看到强大的企业领导者，有时候强大似乎就等于永不犯错。明星CEO本身对企业无害，虽然有时也可能是这样。比如，J.C.Penney的CEO瑞恩·约翰森正在努力领导这家零售商摆脱困境，存亡一线几乎不容有失。能获得这样的重任，部分原因正是因为他在担任苹果公司（Apple）零售业务高级副总裁期间的出色表现。

    少数公司已经开始尝试降低对个别核心人物的依赖。经营高科技防水织物GORE-TEX的戈尔公司(W.L Gore and Associates）拥有被称为“扁平格子”的领导架构。他们还为此创造了一整套语言：称老板为“倡议者”，不再有员工，只有“伙伴”。这家公司相信，一旦团体组建起来完成特定任务时，领导者就会自然而然地显现出来了。

    但是，建立无等级架构需要大量工作，弗斯特表示，即便是那些职能扁平化的公司也有创始人和CEO。“参照社交等级制度，如果最高位置空缺，会让公司处于非常有压力的境地。我们希望知道有人在负责，有一个权威。”

    需要有一个群体，才能让这些权威人士成为明星。：“因为只有很多人选择走进来，坐下来听他们讲，他们才能成为明星。”

    明星效应可能分散对良好领导力的关注，但不一定是这样。亚利桑那州立大学（Arizona State University）管理学教授戴维·沃德曼表示，领导者可以既自恋，又谦逊。他的研究显示，一些出色的企业领导者属于“轻微的”自恋者。“没错，他们喜欢成为关注焦点，他们高度自负，有一点自大。但他们也知道，周围的人也值得欣赏。”

    沃德曼第一次读到迈克尔·麦克比2000年刊登在《哈佛商业评论》（Harvard Business Review）上有关自恋型领导的优势和劣势文章时产生了这样的想法。“从整个历史来看，自恋者总是在激励人们，构建未来，”麦克比在那篇文章中写道。他认为，领导企业实现辉煌的是那些能认识到自身不足的人。

    We want so badly to believe in superheroes. When it comes to business leaders, that can quickly turn into a liability. Many chief execs control so much money, and we pay them so handsomely, so we treat them -- and want to believe they deserve to be treated -- like stars.

    In business, "the culture of celebrity is maybe as strong as it's ever been," says Zachary First, managing director of The Drucker Institute.

    Several forces create a star CEO. For one, high-profile leaders tend to know how to work a room, and many may have learned to like the limelight. But also, employees, the market and the media want strong leaders, and sometimes strength becomes conflated with infallibility. Star CEOs are not inherently bad for business, though they can be. J.C. Penney (JCP) CEO Ron Johnson, for example, is dealing with a particularly tight margin of error at the struggling retailer partly because of his especially impressive performance as senior VP of retail operations at Apple (AAPL).

    A couple of organizations have tried to mitigate dependence on one central leader. W.L Gore and Associates, the company behind the high-tech, waterproof fabric GORE-TEX has what is called a "flat lattice" leadership scheme. They've created an entire language around this: they call bosses "sponsors," and have no employees, but "associates." The company holds that leaders will naturally emerge when groups form to accomplish certain tasks.

    But a non-hierarchical structure requires a tremendous amount of work, says First, and even functional flat companies have founders and CEOs. "To look up the social hierarchy and not see anyone at the top is an extremely stressful position for companies to be in. We want to know that somebody's in charge, that there is an authority."

    It takes a village to make those authorities stars. "They're only celebrities because a lot of people choose to go and sit in the audience to hear them," First says.

    Celebrity can become a crippling distraction from good leadership, but it doesn't have to play out that way. Leaders can be both self-obsessed and humble, claims David Waldman, a management professor at Arizona State University. His research suggests that some capable business leaders are what he calls "softer" narcissists. "Okay yeah, they like to be the subject of the limelight, they have high self-regard, and a degree of hubris. But they also recognize that other people around them deserve a lot of praise."

    It's an idea he first read about in Michael Maccoby's 2000 Harvard Business Review article about the pros and cons of narcissistic leaders. "Throughout history, narcissists have always emerged to inspire people and to shape the future," Maccoby writes in the piece. The ones who lead companies to greatness, he suggests, are those who can recognize their own limitations.