Whenever you see a list like this, you know that “best-performing” means best stock performance. As an article on the latest ranking by Harvard Business Review notes, “shareholder return is not the only measure of performance, and it omits contributions companies make to a wide group of stakeholders. But it is the fundamental scorecard for CEOs of public companies. And it’s the same scorecard for everyone.”

So it’s “best-performing” in a very limited sense that makes it possible for the authors to create a list claiming that these are the best-performing CEOs in the world as long as you look only at shareholder return which, according to the authors, is but one measure of performance. If you still think such a list has any value, you can find the list here and the article explaining it here.

One interesting observation from the survey is that insiders who become CEOs tend to do better than outsiders, ranking, on average, 57 places higher than outsiders in the full list.

The authors also created a list of CEOs whose companies performed well after they left. I would think this is a good indicator that the CEOs had helped develop sound management systems that would support continued performance beyond changes in leadership.

Only four of the top 10 are Americans. James Houghton of Corning came in at #8. I interviewed Houghton in the early 1990s for my book, Total Quality Management. He was passionate about creating a quality culture at Corning. In the book, I quoted an article Houghton wrote for Total Quality Management magazine:

In the end, quality is something that becomes deeply personal. It is a commitment to a way of life—to a way of interacting with others. Quality isn’t just a little pool for wading. It is an ocean. If you don’t take the plunge, if you don’t totally immerse yourself, you can’t hope to coax a whole organization to jump in. That’s why quality starts at the top, with the leaders of an organization.

To me, leaders who take performance excellence personally, who immerse themselves in creating a culture of excellence and building management systems that will sustain that excellence beyond their tenure, are the best-performing CEOs in the world.

To read more about leadership, check out:

• The Priorities of Leadership
• Why Organizations Fail
• 10 Critical Questions: Senior Leadership
• Hands-On Leadership

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