Leadership Matters: Appreciate GE's Immelt

There are times when leaders are faced with an untenable situation. On the one hand, they have to take risks to innovate and to make hard decisions in order to succeed in the current environment.

On the other hand, they have to keep stockholders, boards of directors and government regulators comfortable by not rocking the boat beyond "expectations" -- as apparently "expectations" are the primary currency on Wall Street.

If they do the wrong thing, we tend to scream that they are unethical idiots. If they do the right thing, we charge them with pandering to the press. It might just be that, in some cases, the leaders have the courage not to care what we think but to actually do what they believe to be the right thing regardless. ...