Book Summary: Why CEOs Fail The 11 Behaviors that Can Derail Your Climb to

the Top and How to Manage Them - Written by David Dotlich & Peter Cairo
Charlie Munger says Invert, Invert, Invert. When you study success, you have to study failure.
Understanding both sides is the true path to enlightenment. Jim Rohn was a big proponent of learning
and if you study Jesus, Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King then you also need to study Stalin and Hitler. Life
is all about balance and understanding both sides is important.
Why is this important to me?
I am not doing this summary to waste your time. It is my vision to provide concise action steps that you
can adopt right now to reach your entrepreneurial goals. Success and Failure all have to do with results.
You either win or lose. Achieving results has to be the responsibility of the leader. Attitude and
achievement is a reflection of the leader. You see this in sports all the time. You can have phenomenal
talent but if the leader does not know how to build a team and harness the talent, they will not win.
Why CEOs fail focuses on these eleven derailers: Arrogance, melodrama, Volatility, Excessive Caution,
Habitual Distrust, Aloofness, Mischievousness, Eccentricity, Passive Resistance, Perfectionism, and
Eagerness to Please. For the sake of time, I want to highlight three of them.
Lets look at the three big examples where some spelled disaster and others success. The key is to
balance the behavior so that you dont cross the line.
1. Perfectionism The best example here is Steve Jobs at Apple. This is actually a big success story
but could have easily turned into a train wreck. Pursuing excellence can be a double edged
sword because most leaders would not be able to pull it off. In technology, the slow get eaten.
When perfectionism turns to paralysis by analysis then the company will fail. Steve Jobs was
able to manage this extremely well and the proof is in Apples performance.
2. Arrogance One word will summarize why this is a destructive force in business Enron. The
leadership at Enron thought they were invincible and that level of arrogance drove the company
and thousands of people to financial ruin.
3. Habitual Distrust For this example, we need to look at the U.S. policy on terrorism. I am a big
proponent of destroying terrorists but not at the expense of civil liberties. This policy has
alienated us from the world and this can be seen by our embassies. They look like bomb
shelters. When people are closed off, it creates distrust. Habitual Distrust is very destructive
over time. The percentages of terrorists are minuscule in terms of total population and
sacrificing civil liberties and distrusting 70% of the people is a big mistake. Habitual distrust in
organizations is the same as cancer to your health. Over time it can kill you.

Why CEOs fail is a good book and shows you how to balance any one of the 11 derailers. I can tell you
that I have a few of these potential derailers and they need to be managed or my company could go
sideways.
I hope you have found this short summary useful. The key to any new idea is to work it into your daily
routine until it becomes habit. Habits form in as little as 21 days. One thing you can take away from this
book is find a Mentor. If you are a leader then you need somebody who can kick you in the ass and tell
you like it is. This will allow you to balance any of the derailers that you may have.