This winter, one can see nerves showing from the C-suite. 72% of CEOs are worried about losing their jobs in 2022 because of disruptions, according to a survey. This is closely related to 94% of the bosses who think that corporate models require an overhaul in the next three years as Bloomberg News.
Disrupting forces leading to supply chain crunches and labor market shortfalls playing out simultaneously to the high numbers seen in the survey, as per Simon Freakley, CEO of AlixPartners. This management consulting firm conducted the survey.
Big bosses have always been worried about their job stability, especially in public organizations where cushy chairs are vulnerable to sudden goodbyes. The fear of immediate firing grew from 52% in 2020, considered a high anxiety year. AlixPartners surveyed around 3000 CEOs and Director level Executives across ten industries, with half of them having $ 1 billion-plus revenues. The sample pool was spread across Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East.
Digitalization, labor market, and supply chain topped the list of concerns of the Executives. Surprisingly the pandemic was missing from the top 10 considerations for the executives in 2022, and only 3 % cited the coronavirus as the main worry.
In an interview, Freakley had a theory for the CEOs’ fear of getting ousted. While they survived 2020 with their business intact, they discovered in 2021 that the shareholders demanded growth despite the continuing pandemic.
The business model that served the CEOs for years has been looking unfit now as they rush to build global, regional, and local supply chains. According to Freakley, they went from worries of economic cycles to disruptive forces.
The data is not yet showing up the anxiety. According to the research company Challenger, Gray & Christmas, CEO departures in the U.S. rose by just 1.1% in November 2021 compared to the same period in 2020 on retirement, moving to new jobs, or getting fired.
Technology was an exception that saw departures grow by 17% from the previous year. 39 CEOs left the top organization in October and November alone, totaling 162 for the year up to November compared to 126 in the prior year.
Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Jack Dorsey of Twitter were some of the biggest tech names to move out of CEO roles in 2021 despite both being Co-founders of the companies. Dorsey continues to be the CEO of another company Square Inc.
