1. The CEO articulates a strategic vision for the corporation: The CEO envisions the
company not as it currently is but as it can become. The new perspective that the CEO’s
vision brings to activities and conflicts gives renewed meaning to everyone’s work and
enables employees to see beyond the details of their own jobs to the functioning of the to-
tal corporation.104 Louis Gerstner proposed a new vision for IBM when he proposed that
the company change its business model from computer hardware to services: “If cus-
tomers were going to look to an integrator to help them envision, design, and build end-
to-end solutions, then the companies playing that role would exert tremendous influence
over the full range of technology decisions—from architecture and applications to hard-
ware and software choices.”105 In a survey of 1,500 senior executives from 20 different
countries, when asked the most important behavioral trait a CEO must have, 98% re-
sponded that the CEO must convey “a strong sense of vision.”106