Collaborative Leadership, 2nd Edition

1Interdependence and its Consequences for Leaders

Past performance does not guarantee future success

For Fred Goodwin growth was all about making deals. As Deputy CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) he had already played a major role in carrying off what was then the biggest deal in UK banking history when RBS bought the National Westminster bank in 2001. Three years later, and now as CEO, he led the acquisition of Charter One which propelled RBS into the top ten of US commercial banks. The biggest deal was yet to come. In 2007, RBS bought Dutch banking group ABN Amro and briefly became the largest bank in the world by asset value. And yet within a year he was out of job and the bank he had grown so spectacularly had come ‘within hours’ ...