Building a Better CEO

During normal times, serving as the chief executive of a big company is an enviable position: interesting work, rich pay and a corporate jet at the ready. During recent weeks, however, CEOs have been nearly as embattled as suspiciously muscled baseball players. Consider the news last week from America's boardrooms.

Disney boss Michael Eisner, who'd already been pushed by opponents to schedule his early-retirement party for September 2006, agreed to depart a year earlier to make way for his successor, Robert Iger. At insurance giant AIG, founder Maurice Greenberg resigned under pressure from both his board and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, whose office is investigating AIG. And then there's Bernie Ebbers, the former CEO found guilty on nine counts by a federal jury for the looting of WorldCom. Eisner and Greenberg look downright lucky compared with Ebbers, who faces up to 85 years in prison.

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