For my decision regarding who to choose as my successor as CEO and leader of the company, I would choose the person who is a shaper. The reason behind my choice is that the company has not been very successful lately and the new CEO needs to be a strong-willed person who is good at bringing change to the organization. A shaper is, by definition, somebody who looks for new challenges and likes delivering very high results. A shaper is also generally very passionate about his or her work, which I think is very important in order to get employees motivated for facing change. A shaper is also very entrepreneurial – he/she is good at finding new solutions for existing challenges and where most people see an obstacle, a shaper sees an opportunity. For any CEO, being focused on results is perhaps the most driven characteristic, and a shaper is inherently very results-driven. Further, in executive board rooms conflict occurs very common, and a shaper does not shy away from conflict, and is, in fact, quite good at solving conflicts.
However, there are some risks with having the shaper as CEO. When a shaper faces obstacles, it happens that he/she can get really frustrated and treats people badly, offending their feelings. The shaper can also be provoked very easily. However, when comparing with the two other options (implementer and team worker), I think that the shaper is still the best choice. The team worker doesn’t like making decisions and is really concerned about how he/she is perceived by other people. A CEO has to be a strong person who can make unpopular decisions (such as firing people) without caring too much about if he/she offends other people. Further, the implementer is very good at getting things done but is not very good at driving change. The implementer is a little too close-minded and inflexible to be a good CEO.