The Hero's Farewell: What Happens When CEO's Retire

By Jeffrey Sonnenfeld

Book Overview

How a business replaces its chief executive often determines that firm's future. If a business does not effectively manage the transfer of power, utter turmoil can result, with profound implications not only for the CEO, but also for the other employees, the shareholders, and the community at large.

Filled with inside stories from corporate boardrooms and fresh conceptual perspectives, The Hero's Farewell describes in rich detail the factors that affect executive succession. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld offers the first close examination of the critical role a CEO's departure style plays in helping, or hindering, the transfer of power. Through candid interviews with fifty prominent retired chief executives from corporations such as AT&T, Ford, Dupont, United Technologies, and Raytheon (David Rockefeller of Chase Manhattan and Thomas J. Watson, Jr. of IBM among them) and a survey of an additional three hundred top managers, Sonnenfeld identifies the four major types of leadership departure styles. These types include Monarchs, who choose not to leave voluntarily but either die in office or are overthrown; Generals, who leave reluctantly and spend their retirement planning a comeback; Ambassadors, who retain close ties with their former firms; and Governors, who willingly serve a limited time and leave to pursue new interests.

Capturing the human drama of these departures and succession battles, The Hero's Farewell will fascinate anyone intrigued by power struggles in large corporations. Outlining ways to smooth out the inevitable transfers of power that corporations must face, Sonnenfeld presents essential information for all top executives and especially for CEOs.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195065832
• ISBN13: 9780195065831
• Release Date: February 1991
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Powerful Insights

Good wisdom ages well. Sonnenfeld offers a unique and touching level of empathy for those at the top of their game facing inevitable transition. The alternative to well-planned succession is the kind of turmoil we too often see that serves no one well. Understanding how that drama can be avoided requires uncanny vision and selflessness that often runs counter to the traits of top leadership. This lessons of this book merge logic with passion, strategy with emotion, broad good with personal adjustment. It’s a masterful treatment of a delicate topic. It’s eye-opening and inspiring all at once.

Finishing Well

While a bit dated, this book is one of the most important assessments of the ways strong leaders retire. The four-fold typology of retirees as monarchs, generals, ambassadors and governors is well anchored to credible research providing a helpful way for senior leaders to categorize their leadership style and anticipate the nature of their final departure. The identification of the three sets of tensions faced in the departure of the corporate hero (1) within the leader, (2) across generations of leaders and (3) between leaders and the wider community provide significant insight into the psychological and socio-cultural realities of retirement.