The dilemma boards face: Is your CEO highly efficient yet invisible to the public?

CEO survival can depend less on performance and more on how boards are influenced by external reputation and peer comparisons.

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Kamau led a widely respected manufacturing firm in the industrial area of Nairobi for six years. He steered his firm through supply chain shocks, currency exchange fluctuations impacting the price of inputs, and a difficult expansion into East Africa. All the while, his board of directors praised both his discipline and his calm temperament.

Unfortunately, trouble quietly started the same year that two of his rival chief executives at competing firms in the same industry began appearing in glossy business magazines, winning prestigious leadership awards by Kenyan and East African associations, and getting public applause at corporate events and conferences.

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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.