Unreal Expectations? You've got to face them...

Recently a US publication came up with a list of the "20 Best & Worst American CEOs" of all time. The list features quite a lot of expected names with the likes of Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet making the cut in the "Best CEOs" category while the "Worst CEO" tally is headed by the recession critics' favourite boxing bag i.e Lehman Brother's chief Richard Fuld. Some other names which seem to be quite an obvious inclusion in the Worst CEOs category are Enron's Ken Lay and WorldCom's Bernie Ebbers.

An interesting selection in the Worst CEOs category is John Sculley, the infamous former Apple CEO who as per common perception had Steve Jobs literally thrown out of Apple. However, the most striking name in this particular category is Vikram Pandit, Citigroup's current chief. Hold on...before you start getting emotional about him, given his Indian lineage and humble beginnings, here's a food for thought. The explanation provided for his inclusion in the list is:

Pandit didn't create a mess Citi is in, but he is the Financial-Services equivalent of the Titanic's Edward Smith - a commander ill-equipped to save his ship.

When Vikram Pandit tookover from his predecessor Sir Winfried Bischoff in December 2007, the recession crisis had just started showing its true colors. Citi was already on a tough road and there were huge expectations from Pandit to guide the ship out of the rough waters. Unfortunately what was to follow was a literally uncontrollable global economic storm and Vikram Pandit (by choice) was caught right in the midst of it. Citigroup went from bad to worse and Pandit faced most of the flak for it. Experts feel that Vikram Pandit was plain unlucky to have got the reigns of the company during arguably the worst of times when even the best of the lot couldn't have done much about the dooming economy. However, today's leadership dynamics point towards a newer leadership approach "Making the best out of the worst". Call it badluck or incompetency, the inability of Pandit to weather a ruthless storm has landed him in the list of the worst American CEOs ever, displacing numerous others who have literally single-handedly been responsible for the downfall of some huge organizations.

All these facts point towards a simple fact, "when the stakes are high, even poor performance appears worse than absolute failure." Over the past year or so, Citigroup has been through the worst of the lot, raking in bailout packages on more than a couple of occassions and facing some serious flak for baseless mismanagement of funds. Even now when the company is showing signs of recovery, Vikram Pandit is seen facing verbal bullets from enraged investors who for starters simply want him to be thrown out of power. Again, you may call it a game of luck or helplessness, the fact remains that gone are the days when people would feel for you if they knew that you can't do much about something uncontrollable. Today's ultra competitive environment expects you to deliver as per expectations, no matter how 'unreal' they are and this stands true for each one of us.