If you are not reading the commentary we receive then you are missing some gems. One of our regulars reminded me of something "my pal Warren" said: "... find companies which can be run by idiots because sooner or later an idiot will be running it."

In Buffett's case he can actually call them up and talk to them. In many cases, he could probably get them to resign. For most of us, all we know is basic things like how's the stock price or has the idiot been indicted?

Many analysts have suggested stocks that could benefit from President Obama's policies. But would it be better to find CEOs who lead people in a manner that's similar to his approach? If you believe that the president sets the tone for the rest of the country, the answer may be yes. Under a CEO who thinks of himself as the decider, investing in companies whose CEOs who lead by command-and-control might make sense.

But Obama's approach is different -- he inspires people, surrounds himself with the best, and listens to them before forming his opinions. And rather than trying to divide the world between those who agree and oppose him, Obama tries to find the center of an issue to bring along as many people as he can. I wonder whether this more self-effacing approach to leadership comes from the Midwest where patting yourself on the back is considered poor form.

Are there any CEOs who follow this approach to leadership? I can think of one -- but there may be others. James McNerney, Boeing (NYSE: BA) CEO, seems to follow the Obama approach to leadership in many respects. While McNerney may not have Obama's eloquence (and very few do), he does have an ability to put people at ease and encourages them to debate issues and find solutions to their problems instead of waiting for him to give them the answer.

Because of continued troubles at Sprint (NYSE: S), the company's CEO, Gary Forsee, essentially got the boot. In fact, over the years, the CEO spot has been pretty tough – as seen with companies like Disney (NYSE: DIS), Boeing (NYSE: BA), and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ).

So if big companies have trouble, what about small ones? Unfortunately, hiring a CEO is extremely difficult for any company.

"For an early stage company, the wrong CEO can be costly," said Gordon Gould, the founder and CEO of ThisNext. "Divorcing the executive can mean wasted time, money, momentum and possibly the company itself."

So, if you have doubts about a candidate, it's probably better to wait. "To get the right CEO, it takes time," said Dipanshu Sharma, the founder and CTO of V-ENABLE. "So allocate at least three to four months for the process." Actually, his company recently hired a new CEO.

Sharma believes it is critical to hire a recruiter. "A top-tier venture capital firm recommended a recruiter for us," he said.

And the process was strenuous: "We set up a weekly call with the recruiter and the board/management. Every week we would prioritize the candidate list. After a few weeks, we got candidates that we had initial conversations with. Of those we found that matched our selection criteria, we held several rounds of interviews. In the final process, we flew them to our offices and introduced them to a broader team before finalizing the candidate."

It was also important to spend time on creating a candidate profile. As for V-ENABLE, the company focused on a CEO with:

• Demonstrated success in previous CEO roles
• Team player
• Growth oriented
• Raised capital and has experience in M&A
• Worked in wireless and has relationships with wireless service providers

"Our board and management went through several iterations to make sure we were covering the short term as well as long term needs for the company," said Sharma.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

It's not every person who can be satisfied by just hanging around in their same old job. Some of us folks are continually driven to seek more and better situations for ourselves. So how do you speed your trek up the ladder of success? What are the secrets to upward mobility? How can an ordinary person get extraordinary results, especially when there are forces that seem to be working against you?

I'll give you some tips that may help you up that ladder of success. These principles are tried and true strategies that you can accomplish yourself, and that may help to open up the ladder above you.

• First and foremost, be good at what you do. Work results stand for themselves and quality will reap success faster than volume will. It's never enough just to get the job done. Get it done right and make things easier for those who follow up on you. Shoddy work will hold you out of the game.

• Make it known to your bosses that you consider making them successful as part of your job description. If your boss wants some improvement in income and status, then it's in his or her best interest to serve you. Leaders of employees are motivated by success just like everyone else. Show your bosses how you can make life better for them.

Having posted all week about eBay and getting a tirade of in depth responses from sellers who feel mistreated, deceived, disrespected and financially punished, I feel that this issue will not go away. Not because of my continuous posts and not because sellers feel so passionate about the issues they raise.

The real reason the fire continues to burn is that eBay has not sent in the fire brigade and chooses to ignore the fire. It may be a small fire now but small fires turn into big fires if the fuel is not removed (objectionable business practices) or the fire is not overwhelmed by a fire retarding agent -- better communication, more transparency, more warning of changes and seeking seller input as to how improvements might be made for mutual benefit.

In the case of eBay they hope the fire will burn itself out. Will it? The problem is that they are bullying the "little guy", but absolute power corrupts absolutely and eventually they will meet their match. It may be Google, it may be the SEC or FTC, it may be a large law firm that identifies a class action opportunity or a foreign company. As a kid I always enjoyed Popeye the sailor man, who brought us true "everyman" perspective. One of my favorite sayings of his was "that's all I can stands and I can't stands no more!"

Well, this sums up what I have been hearing all week from sellers. I have learned a lot and I'm sure others have as well. There is some pettiness on the part of some sellers that were conveyed in the comments. And, as always is the case, a few rambled on beyond reason, but I will let readers sort that out for themselves. I am closing out the week with the following message to eBay.

EBay Clean-up Procedure:

1) Better communication: eBay must give all of their vendors proper and timely notice of changes in their policies and practices. They must also take into consideration the time it takes to make adjustments by the sellers so that if they choose to stay with eBay they are not devastated.

Today's funeral of Ken Lay puts to rest his physical presence. Where his soul will end up has been commented on many times and there does not seem to be any controversy. The fact that his family wanted to cremate his body (beating Satan to the punch or hiding the evidence?) is ironic in the sense that when he was alive his company (and my company too), crashed and burned from a financial height that I do not believe has been achieved before in such a short period of time.

The pain of his (and Fastow's, Skilling's and others) financially and morally corrupt adventures spread far and wide affecting a very broad swath of the nation and will be reviewed for decades in business schools, board rooms, Federal Commissions and more.

I crashed with the rest of the shareholders, workers, lenders and affiliated companies. To me the amazing thing is that in one day I made the best sell decision of my investing career and the worst buy. When Cisco Systems hit an all time high of $82 and was the highest "valued" company in the world at a capitalization of $450 billion, some idiot analyst prognosticated that it would be the first trillion dollar company. At the time Cisco was touting 50% annual growth for years out and my alarm bells began flashing. I decided it was time to abandon ship. I sold.

So what did I do with the money from the sale? I decided it would be a good idea to diversify more and moved the money from Internet/tech to energy. The sector was lagging at the time and I thought it might be ready for a rebound.

Who can resist putting a fictional character in charge of a massive conglomerate? A new book called If Harry Potter Ran General Electric, by author Tom Morris, posits just that. He uses Harry Potter and his actions to demonstrate how true leaders act and inspire others. The focus on GE is also used, the author says, due to GE's tradition of strong leadership in which he sees parallels with Harry's.

Wow, I wonder how many other different large and recognizable brands the author could have tried to jam on the cover of his leadership book to get attention. First off, GE, the widely followed conglomerate, and Harry Potter, one of the most recognizable fictional characters around right now. Not a bad lineup. To be honest, though, the book brings to mind the Simpson's episode I just saw rerun this week where Homer is going away to India to run a nuclear power plant and Marge hands him 'The Cereal is the Prize,' and Homer groans when he realizes the book is just another metaphor-laden leadership book.

I'd say Harry has one up on Immelt of GE, though. He has a wand and magical powers, and no NBC to worry about. Just try and match that Jeff Immelt!

[photo credit: wikipedia]