Dear AIG: I Quit!

If you're not a link clicker, at least click this one and read the letter from Jake DeSantis to Edward Liddy, CEO of AIG.

With the global recession pressing down on every aspect of our lives, it has become painfully obvious that most recruiters and hiring managers have very little skill in selecting people based upon leadership needs or potential.

Perhaps the solution is to select solely on the ability of a person to do the job and not on some subjective construct we call leadership - something many recruiters say they can sense in a person but in reality it is grasping at straws.

Sense leadership? What a joke.

Comment by Claudia Faust on March 25, 2009 at 10:33am: Really glad you shared this link, Steve - great insight into yet another facet of the AIG mess, and a real-life business case of the disengagement of great talent when trust disappears between employers and employees.

There is a great Turkish proverb that (loosely translated) says "People get the government they deserve." I wonder what kind of talent - and thereby future leaders - will run the largest insurance company in the world now? And what impact that will continue to have on Main Street everywhere?