Opinion: Post-Bailout CEOs Need Integrity

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By Todd Thomas, founder of IMPACT Consulting and Development.

Only one in a 100 respondents said that they trusted their leaders in a December 2008 poll by CNN . Those who said they did either trusted specific leaders they knew or felt they had no choice but to trust their leaders because they are in a position of power.

While this question was asked in the context of political leadership, my work over the last 20 years with corporations and organizations would suggest that distrust in the corporate leadership world is nearly, if not equally, as bad.

So what? Does it actually matter whether corporate leaders have values? Until recently, we might have said, "No. Not really."

When the CEOs of General Motors(GM), Ford (F) and Chrysler were providing shareholder results, we didn't really care whether or not they were using the corporate jet for short business trips. "Why not," we would say. He's "delivering results." And therein lies the problem of the culture that created the current situation.

For example, when success for Bank of America (BAC) or any of the other major investment firms correlated entirely with financial outcome and the ability to make quick decisions, we get what we pay for: CEOs and top executives who do whatever it takes to keep shareholders happy and bonuses astronomical. This CEO has to be efficiency-minded, execution oriented and persistent in the face of adversity in order to keep feeding the beast of "return expectations."

So if the "Before-Bailout CEO" helped get us into this mess (with our support by the way), what will the After-Bailout CEO need to look like in order to get us out of it? Of course this new CEO will still have to deliver results. In fact, with the current economic status on Wall Street, it would appear that now more than ever we need results-oriented CEOs in order to turn around the current business outlook. The question then is not "What?" The question is "How?" And more importantly, what have we learned from the current situation that can guide us in the future?