Should Top Managers be Accredited Email this article to a friend Printer-friendly version

One of the great (and scary) things about America is that anyone can become President. And certainly, anyone can become a senior manager in a large corporation. However, I wonder if anyone can get a job launching nuclear missiles? I hope the answer to that question is an emphatic no. I trust that the button pusher goes through a long series of tests to ensure they are suitable for the job. I don't give a hoot if these tests are biased or fail to meet legal fairness standards. I just hope they screen out 100% of the wrong people. While the job of a CEO may not be as dangerous as a button pusher they do have a major impact on a great many people. Doctors need to be accredited so why not CEOs? I believe assessment centers are good enough that they could successfully screen out candidates who are too stupid, too self- centered, or too brutish to be CEOs. It would be in everyone's interest to put this in place. We could say, "leave it to the shareholders", but frankly current governance mechanisms allow far too many bad CEOs to take the helm. CEOs of large companies have too much impact to simply let anyone who can claw their way to the top take the job. We need some universal standards to help protect employees, shareholders and the public at large from dangerous CEOs. We need an accreditation process. HR managers of Global 2000 firms should work towards universally recognized assessment processes that all top managers must successfully pass. -David Creelman www.HR.com Top of Page