Leadership - a triumph of youth over experience?

Leaders, like policemen, seem to be getting younger. Don’t take my word for it. There is some useful evidence and examples here which make the point, in this Independent article on the age profile of the UK’s leading CEOs.

Only 3 per cent of the CEOs of the FTSE-100 are now in their sixties. that’s down from 10 per cent back in 1997. The propotion of CEOs from the FTSE-250 in their fifties has fallen from 45 per cent in 1997 to just 45 per cent now. Whatever happened to needing experience at the helm of a major quoted company.

There are some other interesting and useful insights from the article. Apparently the UK’s business leaders are “not only younger but also more of the hired-gun type, often with overseas experience, who don’t tend to hang around in any one job for too long”.

It is also suggested that one reason for the increasing youthfulness of CEOs are flatter organisational hierarchies (fewer layers for the ambitious CEO to climb) and also that firms want their leaders to be in closer touch to the rapid changes in their markets. Do younger CEOs take a closer interest in globalisation, CSR and the disruptive influence of technology? Possibly.

I like the reference to the increasing appointment of external candidates as CEOs rather than the appointment of internal candidates. Perhaps there is a close link between this trend and the desire for firms to effect change more rapidly than might be achieved by internal succession.