One person, one company, multiple health problems - and whoosh! The share price of Apple Inc plummeted by more than 8 percent last week when its chief executive, Steve Jobs, was granted an indefinite medical leave.
Jobs is like many of those celebrity CEOs whom people aspire to be, and whose absence from the company creates nervousness amongst the stakeholders. These larger-than-life figures, whose success stories are touted exuberantly through the media, include the likes of Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Jack Welch to name a few.
Some of these CEOs gain celebrity status because they have either built their company from the scratch or were involved in a business that required passionate involvement of their creative genius.
But there is another factor behind this drive of perching up corporate personalities to the pedestal.
Several management studies suggest that corporate celebrities are a product of the media.
As business and finance journalism grew all over the world, journalists needed icons and heroes to fill up the pages of their magazines and daily publications, and to magnetise the market, the achievements of these near cult heroes had to be dramatised.
Interestingly, this phenomenon is more popular with the American media, as The Economist highlighted almost eight years ago. "Nowhere raises their corporate heroes as high as America," the magazine said. And even to date, hardly anybody can recall the names of any Japanese or any German CEO for that matter.
As far as the domestic Pakistani market and celebrity CEOs are concerned, the relative nascence of business and finance journalism in the country stands at odds with the idea, at least, at this point in time.
While social and entertainment media has evolved triumphantly in recent past, business channels and financial newspapers have not witnessed the kind of growth seen in their more entertaining counterparts.
According to Dr Ehsan-ul-Haque, Professor of Marketing at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), however, as the recognition of business journalism is increasing, even if at a slower pace, local TV channels are showcasing business leaders, recognising their achievements and thereby converting them into celebrities. Some local channels now cover corporate and business leaders in their weekly programmes.
Besides this, cultural factors can also be a reason for the relatively muted attention showered upon businessmen and executives. "Our society has traditionally looked down upon money-making. Muslims in the subcontinent were supposed to be the ruling class and trade and business were assigned to the lowly Hindu bunya. Consequently, the success of business personalities might be interpreted in a negative connotation by the people and that might be a reason for sparing them the fame," said Haque.
Then of course the predatory behaviour of the government as well as the gloomy law and order situation in the country is also a possible deterrent, since it renders businessmen wary of the limelight, Haque pointed out .
Yet, the point of interest is whether having celebrity CEOs is worthwhile or whether countries without celebrity CEOs are being more judicious. Many believe that focusing on a single person rather than the entire company is the reason for the kind of knock down in share prices.
However, the impact of this is largely believed to be temporary and quite marginal. The performance of a company is not deemed to depend upon having or not having a star-studded corporate cast.
"There are also hundreds of companies which have gone bankrupt and their CEOs were unknown figures. I don think just the CEO being a celebrity determines the future viability or otherwise of a firm," said Dr Haque.
But celebrity CEOs should plan well ahead for their departures, and that too, in a strategic fashion. Warren Buffet can be spotted on international media, talking about his prospective successors - a seemingly sound strategy to win the investors trust, particularly for the time when he decides to pull out.
Like many things, having a popular figure in a company may bode well as far as marketing and publishing the company is concerned. But the path has to be cleverly treaded upon.