ROLES EXECUTIVES PLAY - CEOS, BEHAVIORAL COMPLEXITY, AND FIRM PERFORMANCE

This paper develops a model of executive leadership consisting of four competing roles: Vision Selter, Motivator, Analyzer, and Task Master. These four roles are operationalized and hypotheses are then tested c oncerning their relationships to three dimensions of firm performance using data collected from a sample of 916 top managers. Results sugges t that CEOs with high ''behavioral complexity'' - the ability to play multiple, competing roles - produce the best firm performance, particu larly with respect to business performance (growth and innovation) and organizational (stakeholder) effectiveness. Executive leadership role had little to do with firms' financial performance.