孤立无援的CEO会搞砸公司

    普通人难以理解首席执行官作出决策背后的原因。回过头来看，摩根大通（J.P. Morgan）的首席执行官杰米•戴蒙似乎应该阻止那些最终让公司损失90亿美元的交易活动。在旁观者看来，一切早有先兆。

    鲁伯特•默多克似乎同样犯了很明显错误，如果他应对得当，也不会因为电话窃听丑闻而深受诟病了。上周四，他的新闻集团（News Corp.）不得不宣布将旗下的出版和娱乐业务分拆成两个公司。

    各种各样的因素都在影响着财富500强的头头脑脑们，其中一个因素对他们的影响最大，而且这个因素的作用方式不同以往，它就是孤独。

    即使他们有时会感到孤单，我们也很难去怜悯这些腰缠万贯的家伙。但首席执行官的孤立无助如果处理不当就会引发危险的沟通灾难。一旦首席执行官与团队之间的信任不复存在，整个公司的健康都会受到波及。殷鉴不远，看看辉瑞（Pfizer）的董事会大战和明富环球（MF Global）挪用6亿美元的投资者资金的故事我们就会明白。

    这种孤独感并不少见，咨询公司RHR International的董事长兼首席执行官托马斯•萨波里托说：“高处不胜寒不是什么陈腐的概念。我做这行超过30年，和不下200位老总聊过。在我们的私下讨论中，多数人都会慨叹孤独。”今年6月，RHR International发布了对100位首席执行官的调查，其中41%的老总自称曾感到孤立无援。

    由于外界关注度的提高，现代的公司老总反而比以往更加感到孤独。“最大的差别就是首席执行官现在都经受着史无前例的审查，”萨波里托说。“方方面面都对他们吹毛求疵。股东、监管者和分析人士都要求提高信息透明度。”

    为了突破这些束缚，领导者必须学会在纷纷扰扰中发现和培养真诚的互动。虽然大多数时候要表现出金刚不坏之身，但CEO们也需要寻觅空间，可以袒露脆弱的一面。

    萨波里托认为，接受审视原本就是高管工作的一部分，好的领导者早已接受这一事实。他进一步指出：“真正优秀的领导者还会创造一种安全的回馈系统和文化。”

    安全回馈的平台可以有多种形式。北泽西社区银行（North Jersey Community Bank）的创始人和首席执行官弗兰克•索伦蒂诺三世的经验是，召开公司各个级别代表参与的小组讨论会，让人们可以大倒苦水，而代表们的确没让他失望。

    For a layperson, it's tough to understand why CEOs make the choices they do. It seems clear, in hindsight, that J.P. Morgan (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon should have put the kibosh on trading practices that could ultimately cost the company $9 billion. To the rest of us, it looks like there were warning signs.

    It also appears obvious to us that Rupert Murdoch could have dodged at least some of the fallout from the phone-hacking scandal if he had a better handle on what was going on at News Corp. (NWS), which announced Thursday that it wouldsplit its publishing and entertainment arms into two companies.

    Certainly, a myriad of factors influence the leaders of Fortune 500 companies. But one factor that can affect people at the top more than others -- and in a different way than ever before -- is isolation.

    Sure, it's hard to pity people with so much money, even if they feel a little lonely every now and then. But isolation, when mishandled, can trigger dangerous communication breakdowns. When CEOs don't trust the team surrounding them, the health of a corporation suffers. Just look at the fallout from board wars at Pfizer or MF Global misplacing some $600 million in its investors' money.

    This sort of isolation is prevalent among CEOs, says Thomas Saporito, chairman and CEO of consulting firm RHR International: "The notion that it's lonely at the top is not just a trite phrase. I've been at this for over 30 years, and I've spoken with 200 plus CEOs -- there are precious few that didn't, in the privacy of our discussions, talk about loneliness."

    This June, RHR International, published a survey of 100 CEOs who reported, among other things, feelings of isolation. Of those surveyed, 41% said they experienced loneliness in their jobs.

    Modern CEOs may feel more isolated than CEOs in the past, in part, because the spotlight is much sharper. For today's leaders, "the biggest difference is that CEOs in this era are undergoing an incredible level of scrutiny," Saporito says. "They're under the gun from just about every which angle. Shareholders, regulators and analysts expect a much greater level of transparency."

    To stay out of the CEO bubble, leaders must learn to spot and cultivate genuine interactions among the deluge. While they may have to appear bulletproof much of the time, they also need to find spaces where they can be fallible.

    Scrutiny is part of the job, says Saporito, and good leaders accept that. Then, he adds, "the really good ones figure out how to create a system and a culture of feedback that is safe."

    That platform for safe feedback can take several forms. Frank Sorrentino III, founder and CEO of North Jersey Community Bank says that he holds focus groups with representatives from every level in the company, where people can air their grievances, and they certainly do.