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WHEN BAD THINGS

HAPPEN TO GOOD

LEADERS:

FIRING BACK FROM

CAREER DISASTERSJeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward

In confronting losses of all types, we are too oftenfaced with trite prescriptions for squeezing the lemonsof life into lemonade. For leaders, however, life’s ad-

versity can turn hard-earned assets into monumentalbarriers to recovery. Leaders can enjoy such resources asgreat popular recognition, vast networks of supporters,and gushing pools of finances. Yet celebrity, popularity,and wealth do not insulate them from fate.

Leaders have no cruise control for coasting on the mo-mentum of recent triumphs. Today’s evidence of goodfortune could evaporate with tomorrow’s events. Onemoment we can be on top of the world, and the next,

trodden underfoot. What’s more, many people enjoyseeing those who have been held on a pedestal getknocked down. Just ask Martha Stewart, should youneed convincing about the power of schadenfreude orthe delight in the humiliation of those we envy.

This point is dramatized well for us time and time againin the headlines. Whether it is movie or media stars,artists, politicians, business leaders, or even academics,fascinated attention follows those who fall from grace,who get knocked off their pedestals either through theirown slipups or by external overthrow. For many, the de-railment of a career of high accomplishment com-pounds adversity because their path to date has been soall-consuming that much else was sacrificed in its pur-suit. Private dreams became public possessions, whichare then cavalierly tossed away by an unappreciative,fickle society.

E X E C U T I V E F O R U M

Adapted from Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Ca-reer Disasters by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward. © Copyright2007 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All RightsReserved.

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Former president Jimmy Carter challenged a group ofCEOs at one of our conferences to consider how theywould recover if the American public had fired them.Despite failing to be reelected, Carter continued tire-lessly in his humanitarian, public health, and diplomacymissions, heavily promoting democratic reform aroundthe world, and has become revered by virtually all asthe United States’s greatest former president and recog-nized as a Nobel Laureate for Peace. Leaders should notbe measured by how they bask in their accomplish-ments. Rather, they should be measured by how theyrespond when fate deflates the joys of hard-earned tri-umphs.

Firing BackIn answering the question of what distinguishes those whosuccessfully rebound from those who fail to regain pastprominence, we interviewed and examined the comebacksand failures of hundreds of prominent leaders who facedsuch adversity. While our resulting book, Firing Back:How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters, docu-ments the steps these leaders took to regain prominence,our research pointed to seven crucial lessons that every-one facing career disaster can benefit from.

Lesson 1: Failure is a beginning, not anend: a source of new success.

A great pioneer of job outplacement, Frank Louchheim,the founder of Right Management Associates, used tocheer up his clients after their termination by saying,

“We’re not undertakers, we’re obstetricians!” Similarly,the Home Depot’s financial backer told cofoundersBernie Marcus and Arthur Blank as soon as they werefired from Handy Dan’s Home Improvement Centers,“You’ve just been kicked in the ass with a golden horse-shoe.”

In his inspirational book The Hero with a ThousandFaces, anthropologist Joseph Campbell presents themonomyth of the hero—or a career trajectory of folkheroes across centuries, countries, races, and religions.The core stages of heroic careers include a separationfrom society, a call to adventure, continual trials throughtemptation, an early success spiral of dragon-slaying tri-umphs, and then the essential recovery from crushingmidcareer defeat. It was only through triumphing overdefeat that they were able to battle back against life’sadversity and genuinely prove their transcendence ofthe forces that took down others. The genuine hero bat-tles beyond personal and historical limitations to dis-cover a valid human solution to the community’sproblems and conflicts.

Lesson 2: Ignore the advice of friendsto lick your wounds.

We have heard this advice often, and unfortunately somefriends, such as the ingenious Nick Nicholas, former co-CEO of Time Warner, or Michael Fuchs of HBO, tookthis advice—investing brilliantly, but waiting for that

Jimmy Carter challenged a

group of CEOs to consider

how they would recover if

the American public had

fired them.

Leaders have no cruise

control for coasting on the

momentum of recent

triumphs.

S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 3 5

CEO position to return. These men at least dived suc-cessfully into the mainstream of board directorships andentrepreneurial investing. When financier Ken Langonefelt he was falsely accused by the National Associationof Securities Dealers of grabbing IPO profits due hisclients, he fought the charges—with his clients at hisside—and prevailed. Rather than take his lumps, he toldus, “I fought like hell because reputation matters.” Whenfinancial journalist Jim Cramer was falsely accused bysome a decade ago of not revealing his position in somestocks he wrote about in a single Smart Money story, de-spite thousands of prior pieces disclosing his own relatedstock holdings, he fought to prove to the authorities andall critics that the editors of Smart Money, on their own,had accidentally dropped his written disclosures that onetime. But other people do withdraw, take their lumps,and may even find themselves in a world completely de-fined by their past greatness. It is very hard to come backfrom that world.

Lesson 3: No matter how dire thecircumstances seem, triumphantcomeback is possible—as long as youdidn’t kill someone.

While for many, the practicalities of financial and otherconstraints can erect seemingly impossible barriers toovercome, some leaders have wound up in even moredire circumstances. Consider Martha Stewart orMichael Milken, who found themselves in circum-stances they could not imagine, going from beingrenowned leaders in their respective fields to servingtime in prison, believing they had done no wrong. Justlooking at the situation, anyone would anticipate thattheir careers were over—the damage that being con-victed of a crime and sent to prison did to their reputa-tions, the full glare of the media giving them no place tohide, and the weight of public opinion condemningthem even before the courts did. It is hard to imagineany circumstances more dire than these (Milken wasalso told he had terminal cancer, with less than 18months to live), and yet both remained focused on thefuture and how they could rebound rather than wal-lowing in self-pity at the sudden change in fortune thatlife had thrown at them.

Now, in addition to Milken’s many successful privateenterprises, investments in education, and public healthmissions, his Milken Institute draws the world’s lead-ing scientists, economists, journalists, public policy lead-ers, CEOs, and clergy to focus on pressing globalproblems. Ivan Boesky, a fellow financier convicted atthe same time, has not been heard of in public since.Similarly, Martha Stewart’s media world flourishedupon her return, but Leona Helmsley, another high-profile woman entrepreneur put in prison for roughlyhalf a year, has rarely been seen in public.

Austrian psychologist and holocaust survivor ViktorFrankl recounted the horrors of the concentrationcamps and how the loss of a sense of meaning and pur-pose to life led rapidly to decline and death, but he sur-vived by imagining his life after the concentration campand how he would bring the message of its horrors tothe wider world to ensure that it would never happenagain. By giving himself a purpose, something to livefor and look forward to, Frankl kept himself positiveand beat the odds to survive the worst atrocity inhuman history.

Lesson 4: While it may seem that theworld is against you, some peoplesupport you and are eager to help ifyou will let them.

The event of losing a job can trigger a series of reactionsthat tend to isolate you. A large part of our identity isoften defined by what we do. Often, the second ques-

By giving himself a

purpose, Frankl beat the

odds to survive the worst

atrocity in human history.

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tion asked when you meet someone for the first timeis, “What do you do?” Society defines us, and we defineourselves, by our productive work lives. When they aretaken away, we feel a loss of identity, not knowing howto define ourselves. This can lead to isolation as we seekto avoid situations where we will be asked that dreadedquestion for which we no longer have an answer.

Because failure is such a taboo subject in our society,people often don’t know how to confront it. Conse-quently, others, particularly fair-weather friends, mayalso avoid you for lack of knowing what to say and howto address the situation, leading to further isolation.

Counterintuitively, acquaintance networks are actuallymore likely than close friendships to provide useful jobleads because the reach of distant acquaintance ties isso much greater. Many people overlook this fact andfail to reach out to these acquaintance networks, assum-ing that these people have no obligation and no inter-est in helping. On the contrary, our society has a normof general reciprocity whereby people seek to “pay for-ward” help that they have received from others in thepast and seek opportunities to do favors for others intheir network in the same way that they hope and ex-pect that their network would function for them shouldthe need arise.

Strong ties with close friends are also invaluable, notonly for being able to tap into them and their networksas a resource, but more particularly for the strong so-cial support and encouragement that they can provide.Due to the self-absorption that often consumes us aftera setback, it is easy to overlook the emotional exhaustionof friends and family caused by the provision of sup-port. The fourfold increase in the likelihood of separa-tion and divorce resulting from job loss provides awarning that those suffering from such loss also needto be aware of the emotional drain it causes on thosearound them. You should bring others into the positivesteps toward comeback that are being made as well as re-ceiving the understanding and assistance from thesesources of support.

Lesson 5: Get your mission clear.

One important lesson to take away from the hundreds

of comeback stories we studied is the benefit of takingtime to regroup following the downfall. Even if, likeHome Depot founder Bernie Marcus, you already havean idea of what the endgame will look like, taking timeto plan the comeback and clarify the heroic mission tobe pursued is a vital step to take before launching intothe next thing. When Steve Jobs was fired from Applehe headed to the Tuscan hills of northern Italy, where hebought a bicycle and a sleeping bag and camped outunder the stars, thinking through the events that led tohis departure and contemplating what he would donext. From there he went to Sweden and Russia beforereturning home. Once home, he spent months consid-ering different options and spent a lot of time wander-ing the Stanford University campus, reading in thelibrary and immersing himself in new topics such asbiochemistry, and meeting with a variety of people in-cluding Nobel prize–winning biochemist Paul Berg.This time allowed him to put together the importantpieces of the puzzle of what mattered to him—new in-novative products, working with small teams, and edu-cation, and formed the basis for his new mission, NeXT,which eventually led him full circle to a triumphant re-turn to Apple when Apple, then floundering, purchasedNeXT for over $400 million. Many of the people westudied, from Steve Jobs to President Jimmy Carter, alltook time to contemplate and discuss what their nextventure would be and planned it out.

When things look bleak, particularly if there is financialand social pressure to get back in the saddle as quicklyas possible, the result often is a suboptimal rebound atbest and a second disaster at worst. While we adviseagainst licking wounds and retreating, tending to the

Use the time away from

work to reevaluate what

you want to achieve.

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situation and getting out the facts does not mean neces-sarily taking the first job offer that comes along. Plentyof people may try to get you at a discount price or offeryou an inadequate position while you are down. The“I’ll show them” approach often leads to jumping outof the frying pan and into the fire. Jamie Dimon told usthat soon after his termination from Citigroup he wasflooded with offers—but he took more than a year toselect what turned out to be the brilliant choice of BankOne after its troubled First Chicago NBD merger. Manyof the deposed CEOs we talked to in our research hadthe same advice—to use the time away from work toprocess and reevaluate what you want to achieve and notbe tempted back into the fray too quickly.

Lesson 6: Know your story.

For leaders particularly, but also for people at all levelsof an organization, retaining and restoring reputationis an essential component of a comeback. In many in-stances, the path to recovery is guarded by gatekeeperssuch as executive search firms or others in a position tofacilitate or thwart an attempted rebound. In these sit-uations, one’s reputation among these gatekeepers is es-sential to gaining that first step on the path to careerrecovery. Leaders need to take steps to restore their rep-utations through rallying friends and acquaintances tothe cause and by rebuilding heroic stature among largeraudiences. All of this entails knowing, telling, and con-stantly retelling your story, getting the real picture ofpast events out there, and having an explanation for thedownfall that enables faith in your ability to rebound.One example is George Shaheen, who left as CEO ofAndersen Consulting (now Accenture) to head up Web-

van at the height of the dot-com boom. The proud Sha-heen suffered his share of teasing as his years as a con-sultant failed to translate into success as a CEO tryingto operate a headstrong dot-com company that wentbankrupt. Despite the short life of Webvan and its spec-tacular failure, Shaheen retained his reputation amongthe all-important executive search community becausehe was able to portray the Webvan experience as a no-win situation, and its ultimate disaster as a foregoneconclusion.

Although this rationalization was done in hindsight,few faulted Shaheen for leaving a premiere consultingfirm for an uncertain start-up, given the rationale ofsuch a big opportunity and potential for enormous pay-off even with the large risks involved. This explanationin the wake of the dot-com bust enabled this rationali-zation to occur and the emphasis on Shaheen’s priortrack record in the professional services context enabledhim to continue to be well regarded by the executivesearch community, and subsequently he rebounded inanother knowledge-intensive industry as CEO of SiebelSystems.

One common underlying feature of the story that ex-plains setback but enables future rebounding is the no-tion of control. Even when leaders perceive outsideevents as having caused the downfall, it is importantthat the story and the leaders themselves do not por-tray a victim mentality, but rather reinforce the beliefthat they are in control of their destiny. Psychological re-search has shown that people fail to distinguish betweencontrollable and uncontrollable events, preferring to de-pend on outcomes as a guide to the controllability—positive outcomes are seen as having been controllable,but negative outcomes are due to circumstances beyondthe individual’s control.

It is essential for leaders, though, to be able to explain

Comeback is a conscious

choice.

Retaining and restoring

reputation is an essential

component of a comeback.

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their story in such a way that even if external circum-stances are blamed, control for rebound—and avoidinga similar fate again—rests in their control.

Final Lesson: Comeback is not a matterof luck, it is taking a chosen path.

Many of Louis Pasteur’s greatest scientific discoveriescame from serendipitous experiments in the field ratherthan from carefully controlled laboratory investigations.He wisely observed, “Chance favors the preparedmind.” What we found in our research of comebacksof prominent leaders was not just a set of random inspi-rational legends of far-off leaders who came backthrough the good fortune of knowing the right people,of having the right resources, or just being in the rightplace at the right time. Nor is it the case that becausethese were people who had already achieved great suc-cess before their setback, they were protected from theeffects of a fall through some sort of golden parachuteor safety net. They faced prison time, bankruptcy, ill-ness, public derision, lawsuits, and all manner of otherways to beat them down from their pinnacle of successand impede their path to comeback.

What set these leaders apart, however, was a refusal to beheld down by these events and obstacles, and a con-scious choice to make a comeback. Did they immedi-ately see their pathway back? No, not generally. Didthese obstacles sometimes look insurmountable? Yes,they were pretty daunting. So while in hindsight re-counting these great comeback stories makes it seem asif their path was obvious and well signposted, in realitythey all faced difficult decisions on which path to takeat every fork in the road. From the decisions to fight ortake flight from accusations made to damage one’s rep-utation to the retesting of one’s mettle in a new role,sometimes the decision was the well-beaten track, some-

times the road less traveled, but always guided by a focuson their final destination.

What we clearly found from looking at many very dif-ferent comeback stories is that certain commonalitiesprovide a basis for decision making for those who arefacing catastrophic setback and needing to contemplatethe path to rebound. Two alternative renderings of RodSerling’s Requiem for a Heavyweight portray how thesechoices over our post-failure destiny can unfold. In boththe original Playhouse 90 TV series version and the sub-sequent Hollywood remake for the big screen, a cham-pion boxer is forced out of the ring at an early age. Theboxer is badly battered, staying in the ring even whenhis own manager has bet against his lasting. His cor-rupt manager tries to coax him into taking a demeaningjob as a fake fighter in a “professional” wrestling league,but he is repulsed by the suggestion of fraud and theidea that he no longer has any salable skills. After pass-ing through a bar for retired boxers reliving their great-est fights of years past, he erupts, running out into thestreet, claiming, “That’s no way—that’s no way at all.”The boxer then heads to an employment office, wherethe interviewer innocently equates him with disabledveterans looking for work, and he cries out, “I’m nocripple. I was almost the heavyweight champion of theworld. I’m Mountain McClintock. Where do I writethat down on your form?” Then he pounds his fist onthe desk, and the recruiter asks if he’s hurt. The boxerreplies, “Sure it hurts. Every punch along the way asyou climb, you don’t feel the pain then . . . but now itall comes back to hurt, and it hurts real bad!”

The difference between the two versions lies in the finalscene. In the Playhouse 90 television version, the boxer,played by a vulnerable Jack Palance, is on a train, talk-ing excitedly to a young boy about how he is going offto become a counselor at an athletic camp and teachboxing. In the movie version, the boxer, played by anangry, depressed Anthony Quinn, having surrenderedhis pride and dignity, is wearing a cheap Indian cos-tume, mechanically going through fake wrestling holdswith another former boxer in a cheap cowboy outfit.

The lucky viewer who sees both versions of this sagabenefits from the realization that we have choices in life

We have choices in life

even in defeat.

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even in defeat. Yes, we can lose our jobs, our health, ourloved ones, and our material comforts. But much can besaved. No one can truly define success and failure forus—only we can define them for ourselves. No one cantake away our dignity unless we surrender it. No onecan take away our hope and pride unless we give up.No one can take away our love for those around us who

believe in us—unless we elect to ignore them. No onecan take away our concern for our community unlesswe retreat from it. No one can steal our creativity, imag-ination, and skills unless we stop thinking. No one cantake away our humor unless we forget to smile. No onecan take away our hope and opportunity for tomorrowunless we close our own eyes.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is the coauthor, with Andrew

Ward, of “Firing Back: How Great Leaders Re-

bound After Career Disasters,” and six other

leadership books, including “The Hero’s

Farewell.” He is the senior associate dean for ex-

ecutive programs at Yale’s School of Management

and the founder and president of the Yale Chief

Executive Leadership Institute. A regular com-

mentator on PBS’s Nightly Business Report and

NPR’s Marketplace, he frequently appears on

CNBC, CNN, ABC, and other networks, and is

cited in such publications as the New York Times

and the Wall Street Journal.

Andrew Ward is on the management faculty at

the Terry College of Business, University of Geor-

gia, and a research fellow of the Yale Chief Exec-

utive Leadership Institute. In addition to

coauthoring “Firing Back,” he authored “The

Leadership Lifecycle: Matching Leaders to Evolv-

ing Organizations.”