By Steven B. McKinney

McKinney Consulting Inc.

Climbing the "corporate ladder" as we know it has changed. More executives now swing to the top by project from company to company verses taking incremental steps at a single company. Today’s CEO is truly a modern day "Tarzan" that swings to the top.

What is the corporate ladder? Fortune magazine editor William H. Whyte penned the phrase "Organization Man" in his book by that title in 1956. In the Organization Man era, executives only left if a company didn’t deliver on its promise of upward mobility.

An executive in the Organization Man era and many still today utilize the corporate ladder. He stays with the same company his entire career. Progression is made by incremental steps up the organization chart as opportunities arise.

To many, the corporate ladder feels safe. Some executives choose the corporate ladder as they feel more job security and less risk in staying with a single company longer. For some companies this might be true but for others it is not. Today’s business climate is full of mergers & acquisitions and management changes. Here today and gone tomorrow unfortunately is our reality.

However, more and more organizations are replacing the corporate ladder with a rope. This is a trend that has been coming for many years now. Instead of climbing up the organization chart of a single company one level at a time progression within an organization is better characterized by swinging on a rope. The rope is symbolic of the upward mobility of executives as the work within a company for a period of time and then are promoted to work for another company. This method of acquiring experience and value is symbolic of swinging from one company to another and from project to Project. All of the time the executive is gaining knowledge and experience that will help him once he reaches the executive floor. The rope is the vehicle to the executive floor of the organization.

The TV character Tarzan possesses great humanistic abilities in running, swimming, swinging from tree to tree and taming the wild beasts. By virtue of his great speed and capacity to grasp the elements of his environment he is crowned, "King of the Jungle".

Just like Tarzan, today’s high tech gadgets must be lightening fast and have the capacity to carry an elephant on its back. These high tech gadgets improve our quality of life, work efficiency and aide leaders in accomplishing volcanic tasks.

Unlike technology we don’t normally equate the words speed or capacity as characteristics of a strong leader. We're human. We cannot imagine a leader receiving an upgrade of his or her memory or having a faster processor imbedded into their brains for optimal performance, of course not. Yet, we expect, we demand greater performance from our leaders. And, we are getting the improved performance.

Steven B. McKinney is the founder and president of McKinney Consulting Inc., Korea's most trusted executive search firm.  McKinney Consulting offers a comprehensive range of personalized, professional resource services to a wide cross-section of companies operating in Korea and Asia.  Mr. McKinney is a globally established commentator on international management.  He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it