[Sevastopol]

If the board is incompetent, then the CEO will usually be incompetent too. A CEO doesn't make every decision for the company, just the important ones. A new CEO has great impact on a company's present and future unless the company is already organized to give /other executives/ most of his or her responsibilities.

At the companies I've worked at, lower levels never make far-reaching decisions for the company.

[esarbe]

In all the companies I've worked at, never has a CEO made a decision that made a company successful. The best thing a CEO can do when it comes to decisions that make a company successful is one thing; recognize good ideas and get the hell out of the way of the people implementing that decision.

That's what incompetent CEOs usually do; they get in the way of competent people doing a heck of a job.

Good CEOs know that they are figureheads and try to stay out of the crucial decision making, handing off responsibilities to people that actually know what they are doing.

[Sevastopol]

> In all the companies I've worked at, never has a CEO made a decision that made a company successful.

Hasn't been the case for me. Even if they didn't come up with, say, a market strategy, they're important in executing it. They lead rather than getting the hell out of the way.

>Good CEOs know that they are figureheads and try to stay out of the crucial decision making, handing off responsibilities to people that actually know what they are doing.

A good CEO makes critical decisions. Handing off responsibilities if they know their limits is indeed part of being a good CEO.