Ed Whitacre has solved the problem I noted last month of finding a chief executive who could work under him at General Motors – he has adopted the Dick Cheney tactic of appointing himself.
This solves one problem but it leaves me with an uneasy feeling about the way that Mr Whitacre, the former chairman and chief executive of AT&T who was appointed by the Obama administration to oversee its own investment in the restructured GM, has interpreted his mandate.
This is not a criticism of what Mr Whitacre has done so far at GM. Fritz Henderson, the former chief executive, did not handle the potential sale of Opel in Europe adroitly and 68-year-old Mr Henderson is correct to have reshuffled GM’s senior ranks.
But the idea that Mr Whitacre would be content as an “interim chief executive” never seemed that convincing. He always looked unlikely to share power well with anyone else.
Frankly, if I were in the Obama administration, I would be a bit concerned. Although Mr Whitacre talked of the GM board urging him to take the job permanently for stability’s sake, it feels like his decision.
It is a telling contrast to Ford, where Bill Ford has found a way to work amicably alongside Alan Mulally and shift the company’s trajectory.
The last thing GM needs is for one compliant board, which backed Rick Wagoner’s strategy and resisted any criticism of it, to be replaced by another dominated by Mr Whitacre.
