The Economist November 13th 2021 Business 67ger—a trend visible before the coronavirus
began to spread. As rent collections for
shops and restaurants plummeted last
year, data traffic from virtual meetings and
online shopping exploded. Companies
that use the underlying data centres and
mobile towers are demanding more of
them. These digitaleconomy winners
look as safe as houses.
The shift is reflected in the changing
makeup of America’s ten largest reales
tate investment trusts (reits). A decade
ago the most valuable such vehicle was Si
mon Property Group, the country’s biggest
mall owner. Today it is American Tower, a
fastexpanding owner of tens of thousands
of phone masts around the world. Five of
the top ten reitscurrently manage either
data centres or mobile towers.
The loudest buzz currently surrounds
lifesciences and lab space. Investors are
flooding the healthcare sector with capi
tal. Drug makers, medicalequipment
manufacturers and other lifesciences
firms have raised a record $103bn in ven
ture capital so far this year, up from $63bn
in 2019, according to jll, a property consul
tancy. A generous slice of capital is goinginto property. jll estimates that up to
$87bn is now being directed towards life
sciences real estate worldwide. That is
equivalent to a third of all global spending
on commercial property in the second
quarter of this year.
Landmark deals are cropping up fre
quently. In October gic, Singapore’s sover
eignwealth fund, purchased a 40% stake
in Oxford Science Park from Magdalen Col
lege, part of Oxford University; the deal val
ued the park at ten times its worth just five
years ago. Blackstone, a privateequity
firm, recently doubled its ownership ofC
elebrity bosses used to have nick
names that made a virtue of short
fuses and brutality. “Chainsaw Al” and
“Neutron Jack” sounded more like wres
tlers than men in suits. That kind of
moniker would jar today. Inclusivity and
empathy are what matter: think “Listen
ing Tim” and “Simpatico Satya”. But just
because chief executives seem more
normal does not mean that they actually
are. The demands of the job require an
everstranger set of characteristics.
In some ways the path to the top of
the corporate pyramid is unchanged. It
requires people to compete with each
other over an extended period. It de
mands evidence of financial and oper
ational success. It uses the prospect of
money—lots of it—as a lever to incentiv
ise ambitious people. And it selects for
familiar traits: hard work, impatience,
selfconfidence and extroversion. If you
would rather stay in and watch “The
Great British Bake Off” than wine and
dine clients, the role is not for you.
A recent study by Steve Kaplan of the
University of Chicago and Morten Soren
sen of the Tuck School of Business looks
at assessments conducted by ghsmart, a
consulting firm, of more than 2,600
candidates for different leadership posi
tions. Candidates for ceojobs emerge as
a recognisable type. Across a range of
characteristics they have more extreme
ratings on average: they shine in what
the academics term “general ability”.
They also differ from other executives
in the particulars. Where aspiring chief
financial officers are more analytical and
focus on the detail, wouldbe ceos score
higher on charisma, on getting things
done and on strategic thinking. These
traits also seem to be predictive. By track
ing the subsequent careers of candidates,
the academics find that people who wereapplying for a different position but had
“ceolike” characteristics were more likely
eventually to wind up in the top job.
Yet firms today are after more than a
typeapersonality. Mr Kaplan and Mr
Sorensen note that ceocandidates with
better interpersonal skills are more likely
to be hired. Another new piece of research,
from academics at Imperial College Lon
don, Cornell University and Harvard Uni
versity, analyses the lengthy job descrip
tions that companies draw up when they
work with headhunters to recruit a new
leader. Cognitive skills, operational nous
and financial knowledge are prerequisites
for success. But over the past two decades
these descriptions have placed more and
more emphasis on social skills—the abil
ity of bosses to coordinate and communi
cate with multiple people.
Why are these softer skills prized? The
answer, according to Stephen Hansen of
Imperial College, lies partly in the rise of
knowledge workers. Firms increasingly
depend on developers, data scientists and
itmanagers who are used to operating
independently. Chief executives are notgoing to tell these kinds of workers what
to do; their job is to make sure that peo
ple understand the firm’s goals and toil
together effectively. Sure enough, the
paper shows that demand for these skills
goes up in larger and more information
intensive firms. Social skills matter more
when bosses need to persuade as much
as instruct.
The wider environment also rewards
softer skills. Polling by Edelman, a pub
licrelations firm, suggests that major
ities of customers and employees make
choices on what to buy and where to
work based on their beliefs. Chief exec
utives must mollify politicians, respond
to activists and dampen socialmedia
firestorms. It helps if the boss comes
across as a relatable member of society,
not a volcanodwelling villain.
It is not yet time to call time on old
fashioned narcissism. Another study, by
a quartet of researchers at Stanford Grad
uate School of Business, surveyed 182
directors about the personalities of their
chief executives. The answers suggest as
many as 18% of bosses are considered
narcissists by their own board members,
a prevalence rate perhaps three times
that of the general American population.
The researchers also find that firms with
narcissistic ceos tend to have higher
scores for their environmental, social
and governance policies. What better
way for an egomaniac to come across as
empathetic than to save the planet?
The demands on chief executives
make for an increasingly strange mix
ture. Be more talented than others in the
firm, but don't tell them what to do.
Crush the competition while exuding
empathy. Listen charismatically. Be
likeably aggressive. ceos have always
been abnormal. The trick now is not to
show it.The demands on chief executives require them to be weirdBartlebyThe impossible job