If a Boss Falls, Look Out Below

High-Level Exits Have Put Proteges In Jeopardy

The cause of Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina's ouster -- strategy disagreements -- could make her loyalists vulnerable. (Mike Blake -- Reuters)

Look around corporate America these days -- or official Washington, for that matter -- and you see bosses disappearing everywhere.

Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina: ousted. McDonald's chief executive James R. Cantalupo: died. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael K. Powell: on the way out. Powell's dad, Colin, the former secretary of state: already gone.

And that's just a small sample.

According to one study, 92 chief executives left their jobs in January, the most departures in a month since February 2001. President Bush has picked 10 new Cabinet secretaries since his reelection, an extraordinarily fast administration makeover by historical standards.

Such top-level exits always raise big questions for the companies and government agencies left behind. Will there be a fresh corporate strategy? A radical policy shift?

But they also raise a tough personal question for the people left behind, especially those closely aligned with the departing boss. Namely, what do you do when your mentor, whether it be the top boss or just a more experienced colleague who showed you the ropes, gets fired, dies, transfers to another job or otherwise ceases to be in a position to boost your career?

The answer, of course, depends on unique facts and circumstances. Sometimes there is nothing to do but update the résumé and scan the want ads. Other times, career counselors and proteges say, a bit of deft maneuvering can keep you employed as your mentor moves on.

If you are like W. Kenneth Ferree, head of the Media Bureau at the FCC, you simply pack up the office and prepare to find a new gig.

Ferree is the kind of Washington professional who signs up for a government job exclusively to work for the boss-of-the-moment, in this case the FCC's Powell.

The two got to know each other in law school at Georgetown, then followed similar career paths, clerking for the same federal judge and regularly running into each other at "law clerky kinds of functions," as Ferree put it.

Powell went on to be an FCC commissioner, while Ferree went into a career in telecommunications law that often landed him with business before the commission. When Powell ascended to the chairmanship in 2001, he dialed up Ferree.

"He asked if I was interested in public service. I said I was," Ferree said.

Ferree became head of the newly created Media Bureau and worked closely with Powell on a number of high-profile issues, including attempts to rewrite media ownership rules.

"It was a blast, very liberating," Ferree said of his time at the agency. "From Day One, [Powell] told me, 'Don't worry about the politics. You tell me what the right answer is and I'll fight the political battles.' "

But when Powell recently told Ferree he would be stepping down in March, Ferree knew he was done as well. "I told him when I took the job that I was only going to stay as long as he did," Ferree said. "If he had stuck around and asked me to stay, I'd have stayed as long as he wanted. . . . But I don't have the aspiration to be a career FCC bureau chief."

Ferree, 44, said he is just starting to ponder what he might do next.

While Ferree went into his job knowing he would leave whenever his boss did, many workers in government and the private sector lack the flexibility or the desire to leave when a mentor disappears. Career counselors say that for those people, it is critical not to get too close to a single boss.

"If people perceive that in addition to having a close personal relationship with your mentor you are also ideologically aligned with them, then your vulnerability is much greater," said Harvard Business School professor David A. Thomas, a career development expert. "That's especially true if the [outgoing mentor] represents one side of a very sharp divide around some big issue."

That is exactly the case at Hewlett-Packard, where the board of directors last week ousted Fiorina, architect and chief proponent of HP's troubled acquisition of Compaq Computer Corp.

One of Fiorina's allies on the board has already quit, and the new chairwoman, Patricia C. Dunn, reportedly pushed hard for Fiorina's firing. There could be rough days ahead for HP executives viewed as Fiorina loyalists.

Chances are, however, there won't be the kind of mega-purge that took place when E. Stanley O'Neal took over as chief executive of Merrill Lynch & Co. from David H. Komansky in 2002.

In an effort to transform what he viewed as a bloated giant, O'Neal fired scores of senior executives and reshaped the entire leadership of the firm. It was among the biggest clean-outs in corporate history and bitter feelings remain.

"This was slash and burn. If you take a look at any organization, it was an extraordinarily large change," said one former Merrill executive who declined to be identified by name.

The executive said some were given the option to stay but quickly realized their vision for the firm could not coexist with O'Neal's. "He derided it as 'Mother Merrill,' a soft, low-standard firm. . . . Most of us thought it was a firm that had soul."

Of course, not every change in corporate control produces such extreme results. Career counselors say that workers can survive when a new boss comes in, even during a hostile takeover. Catherine G. Abbott is proof.

Abbott, a former Energy Department official, spent a decade working for Enron Corp. (before the bad times began), then became an energy consultant. In 1996, Columbia Gas Systems Inc. Chairman Oliver G. "Rick" Richard III tapped Abbott to head the company's pipeline subsidiaries. Richard had gotten to know Abbott while he was at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and she worked at the Department of Energy.

The Columbia position was a dream job for Abbott, who had all but given up on her ambition to head an operating division at a major company.

"Rick was extraordinarily important to me at Columbia," Abbott said. "He did something for me that no one else had been willing to do. He put me in charge of profit and loss, something I always thought I could be good at, but not everyone else had looked at me and seen that potential."

Abbott helped turn around the pipeline business. But then a hostile takeover bid by NiSource Inc., a midwestern energy company, rocked Columbia. Abbott knew Richard strongly opposed the bid and probably would not be around if NiSource succeeded.

So she began plotting strategy with her management team, trying to figure out what role they might play after an acquisition. "They had a small pipeline operation but nothing of the magnitude that we had," Abbott said. "So we already knew we were somewhat well positioned.

"We talked to people who been through mergers and acquisitions, we looked through the literature about it, and we tried to put ourselves in the acquirer's shoes and see where they were coming from."

Abbott also began having extended talks with NiSource chief executive Gary L. Neale. She told Neale she wanted her management team to take as big a role as possible in a new company.

After a long and sometimes brutal fight, Columbia agreed to merge with NiSource in 2000. Abbott became head of pipeline operations at the new company, and several other Richard proteges moved into top positions at the new company.

Several of those former Columbia executives, including current NiSource president Robert C. Skaggs Jr., remain at the merged company.

Abbott, however, did not survive a round of management cutbacks two years after the merger. But by that point she was ready to move on anyway, having felt a call to Christian ministry. Abbot is now studying at the Wesley Theological Seminary and is set to be ordained next May.

"From a personal standpoint, the timing turned out to be fortuitous, because I felt myself during the whole process being pulled toward a very different place," she said.

Abbott's approach to the NiSource acquisition illustrates what career counselor Cindy Morgan-Jaffe said is a critical skill for proteges: the ability to reach beyond their principal mentors to make multiple alliances. "What that helps people avoid is this idea that when someone they see as everything for them leaves, they feel very abandoned or afraid that they are vulnerable," she said.

Experts say that when they realize they are on the way out, the best mentors will try to make sure their proteges are protected. But Thomas, the Harvard professor, said even the best efforts along these lines won't work if the protege has not established good relations with other power brokers in an organization. "If you don't fit those criteria, and your guy is leaving, you better start packing," he said.