SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT

Outstanding leadership personalities always have a great impact on corporate brand and corporate success. This relation can partly be illustrated very clearly for stock-listed companies: When Josef Ackermann, then CEO of Deutsche Bank, suffered a weakness attack, the bank's stock prices recorded a massive decline. Within few hours, its market capitalization on January 15, 2009 decreased by half a billion Euros. A second instance is the withdrawal of Steve Jobs, who like no other stood for a company's enthralling reincarnation. Apple's market price hit its lowest level in two years. The above examples show that leaders are able to considerably influence a company's reputation and success through their behavior. There is even empirical evidence for the fact that in the external perception a CEO's image correlates with the image of the company brand. Also, a CEO's image and prominence has an influence on media coverage. This was revealed by a survey of 137 communication managers of Germany's 500 most profitable