The new case study for corporate mismanagement in business schools should now be headed up by the recent experience of General Electric (GE).
The latest public report of the GE situation hit the front page of the Wall Street Journal with the title "How Jeffrey Immelt's 'Success Theater' Masked the Rot at GE."
I have led several public companies as well as non-public companies and not-for-profits. To me, one of the most important rules of leadership is transparency - to provide full and honest information about what management is doing and how the company is performing.
A second major rule is to have top-notch people around you so that you can get all the advice and insight you need to run a company, and this becomes more and more important the larger and more complex the company becomes.
