Why corporate America needs a narrative more than it needs leadership
Picture this: a fading franchise, once dominant, now struggling under new direction. The audience grows restless, critics sharpen their knives, and studio executives begin fidgeting nervously as box office numbers plummet. Just as the franchise seems destined for the bargain bin, the studio announces it’s bringing back the original visionary director who launched the series. The trailer drops, fans erupt with excitement, and suddenly, the franchise seems revitalized. At least that’s the illusion.
This isn’t merely a plot device reserved for the Fast & Furious or Star Wars universes. It’s the prevailing operational model of contemporary corporate America. In business, just like in Hollywood, there’s nothing Wall Street covets more than a comeback story.
Strip away the glitzy marketing, the orchestrated fanfare, and the carefully cultivated nostalgia, and you’re confronted with a sobering truth: the return of a former CEO rarely hinges on strategy, talent, or even demonstrated competence. Rather, it’s about storytelling. Investors, employees, and media outlets hunger for compelling redemption arcs, and companies have learned to exploit this vulnerability by treating leadership transitions like blockbuster sequels. The triumphant returns of Bob Iger, Steve Jobs, or Howard Schultz weren’t necessarily about who could most effectively steer their respective companies; they were about who could make people believe in those companies again. And belief, not competence, is what ultimately moves markets.
Of course, these CEO comebacks aren’t just rooted in sentimentality. Experienced leaders return because they bring genuinely valuable assets: institutional knowledge forged through years of operation, proven track records of past success, and an intimate understanding of their company’s unique DNA. Theoretically, this makes them safer bets than gambling on unproven talent. After all, steering a multi-billion-dollar enterprise isn’t a position one casually steps into; seasoned leadership undeniably carries value.
Yet this raises discomfiting questions. If experience alone were the determining factor, why do so many CEO transitions fail despite hiring executives with decades of industry expertise? And if truly effective leadership is as rare as these patterns suggest, why do so many corporations fail to cultivate their own successors, instead perpetually returning to the same revolving door of familiar figures?
The blueprint for these executive resurrections follows a narrative structure as predictable as any Hollywood hero'’s journey. A visionary leader rises to prominence, their name becoming synonymous with the company’s golden era. Eventually, they depart — ousted by the board, lured by new ventures, or simply seeking retirement — leaving behind an untested successor. The new leadership inevitably struggles. Perhaps the stock price dips, innovation stagnates, or the company’s culture shifts in ways that unnerve both investors and employees. The villain in this corporate drama isn’t typically an external competitor; rather it’s the creeping realization that the company’s best days might lie in its past.
Cue the dramatic return. Faced with dwindling confidence and financial uncertainty, the board, like a desperate film studio, opts for a reboot. The legendary leader is summoned back, heralded as the singular figure capable of restoring order. Stock prices surge on the announcement, media outlets craft underdog narratives, and employees — many of whom built their careers under this returning figure — exhale collectively. It's the corporate equivalent of Hollywood’s endless recycling of beloved franchises, complete with splashy marketing campaigns promising “a timeless classic reimagined for today's audience.”
But herein lies the fundamental problem: nostalgia is not a strategy. Just as a revitalized film concept provides no guarantee of box office success, a returning CEO offers no assurance of future prosperity. These comebacks frequently mask deeper systemic issues: inadequate succession planning, leadership stagnation, and excessive reliance on individual personalities rather than sustainable organizational vision.
Our culture amplifies this phenomenon. We love a good comeback story. It’s more exciting to watch the exiled founder return triumphantly than to observe the steady hand of long-term planning at work. This is the “Messiah Effect” in action — our innate tendency to seek out charismatic individuals who promise to fix everything, rather than acknowledging that systemic problems require systemic solutions. But the reliance on any single individual for organizational stability isn’t a demonstration of strength; it’s an admission of weakness. It suggests the organization has failed to nurture internal talent, adapt to evolving market conditions, or implement leadership strategies capable of withstanding inevitable transitions.
Nowhere is this dynamic more evident than in Iger’s return to Disney in 2022 following his retirement in 2020. Even as he handed the reins to Bob Chapek, Iger clung to power as executive chairman of the entertainment juggernaut he had built through the acquisitions of Marvel, Pixar, and Lucasfilm. Chapek later described his tenure as “three years of hell,” haunted by the persistent fear that Iger wanted his job back. The feeling was mutual, as Iger reportedly told colleagues that he returned to Disney to correct what he considered one of his biggest career mistakes: choosing Chapek as his successor. Still, Iger’s second tenure has been marked by struggles with streaming profitability, declining theatrical performance, and a rapidly evolving entertainment landscape that bears little resemblance to the one he once dominated. His return temporarily reassured investors but has not addressed the fundamental structural challenges plaguing Disney's business model.
Howard Schultz’s homecoming at Starbucks presents another striking example. Brought back in 2022 amid unionization efforts and shifting consumer preferences, his return centered less on innovation and more on restoring Starbucks’ aspirational brand identity. His leadership failed to adapt to growing labor movements, alienating employees and forcing the company into a reactive rather than proactive stance. His departure left the same unresolved issues, demonstrating that nostalgia alone cannot solve contemporary challenges. Since his second departure, Starbucks has grappled with a revolving door of CEOs, going from former PepsiCo executive Laxman Narasimhan to former Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol within the span of two years. The constant leadership turnover has left the company struggling with strategic consistency, as each new CEO introduces their own vision only to be replaced before it can fully materialize.
Finally, Jack Dorsey’s second stint at Twitter highlights the perils of believing that founders can invariably reignite their company’s initial spark. While tech enthusiasts welcomed his return, Dorsey’s tenure lacked clear strategic vision. Innovation stalled, content moderation issues intensified, and the platform struggled with monetization. When he departed again, Twitter remained as vulnerable as ever, before eventually falling into the hands of Elon Musk, whose subsequent rebranding of Twitter to “X” has transformed the platform into a case study of how personality-driven leadership can fundamentally alter a company's trajectory. Under Musk’s volatile stewardship, X’s estimated value has plummeted to less than half its $44 billion purchase price while becoming increasingly aligned with his personal political views. With Musk now at the helm of the Trump administration’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), his takeover of X illustrates the dangerous conflation of corporate and political power that can emerge when we mythologize business leaders as all-purpose saviors rather than specialists with limited domains of expertise.
Critics may contend this comparison is unfair. Unlike Hollywood, businesses ultimately succeed or fail based on financial performance, not merely audience perception. A CEO’s return isn’t just about creating a compelling narrative; it’s about delivering measurable results. However, this narrative conveniently obscures the contributions of teams, ignores structural market forces, and reinforces a dangerous cult of personality that pervades corporate governance. When we attribute a company’s success entirely to its CEO, we diminish the collaborative nature of business achievement and perpetuate the illusion that leadership is a solo performance rather than a collective enterprise.
Perhaps most troublingly, this phenomenon reflects the lack of diversity in corporate leadership. The returning CEO is almost invariably cut from familiar cloth: predominantly male, predominantly white, and predominantly from privileged backgrounds. The reuse of the same leadership profiles doesn’t just represent a failure of succession planning; it represents a failure of imagination and inclusion. By continually returning to familiar figures, boards signal that they value comfort over innovation, sameness over diversity, and known quantities over fresh perspectives.
As the credits roll on yet another CEO comeback story, we’re left with the same hollow feeling that follows a disappointing franchise reboot: momentary excitement followed by the realization that we’ve seen this film before, with the same predictable plot points and inevitable disappointing third act. Until shareholders demand original productions instead of tired remakes and boards develop new talent instead of recycling aging stars, we’ll remain trapped in an endless loop of corporate fan service. Perhaps, then, it’s time corporate America learned the lesson that Hollywood itself occasionally remembers: the future belongs to those who create it, not those who keep remaking the past.
Michelle Yu (MBA ‘26) is passionate about all things media, with experience in business news, documentary film, broadcast journalism, and television. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Film and Media Studies and worked for CNBC, NBC News, and CNN prior to HBS, along with projects for HBO, Showtime, Oxygen, and Spectrum.
Comments