When icons leave

Steve Jobs passes away, and even though Apple hit a lifetime high within a year after his death, Apple is now being derided as a company bereft of innovation. The stock fell below $500 yesterday.

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Jim Skinner leaves McDonald's after 41 years of service in June 2012. McDonald's has one of its worst years in quite in a while in 2012.

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Mark Hurd leaves Hewlett-Packard in 2010. The stock has lost about half of its value since then.

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And it isn't just big companies.

Mellanox was having a banner few quarters until early September 2012. Its stock had risen from about $33 to begin 2012 to $120 by early September. It was not just beating expectations; it was trouncing them. Then, in September, the CFO announced that he was retiring. The stock immediately sank by $10. Since then, the company will have had three iffy quarters, and after yesterday's shellacking to the low 40s at one point, it has been slaughtered.

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Of course, with time, things can -- and do -- turn around.

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Leadership matters. It's more than just who these leaders are. It's obviously what they know. But it's also what they stand for and how they inspire.