Where Was The Most Brand Value Destroyed in 2022?
Business
Elon Musk is the business leader whose brand has fallen the farthest this year. With Tesla stock down 60% and with Twitter in tatters, we see the continuation of a pattern: Brilliance isn’t enough. In May 2018, after Musk insulted Tesla shareholders during an earnings call. I went on CNBC Power Lunch and described this pattern.
I said, “What we saw yesterday was a symptom of a bigger problem. And that is, a tendency of brilliant people to assume that brilliance is enough, where temperament is a necessary ingredient to being an effective leader…
“We see that with many companies that become founded by brilliant people who have an inspiring vision. And who create disruptive companies. But there comes a point in the life of the company where that isn’t enough. We are seeing that with Mr. Musk…
“We are certainly seeing repetitions of the same symptoms, And the symptoms suggest a temperament that doesn’t take seriously the burdens that a leader needs to undertake to run a complicated company after a certain point.”
Notice the patterns: They have both explanatory and predictive power…
Written by Helio Fred Garcia
Adjunct Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research : Columbia University
