Corporate Behavior

Lew Glucksman had made a prosperous career out of taking a blue-collar approach to his white-collar job at Lehman Brothers, a premier investment bank. Lew was never one to be focused on accolades; he was very much results oriented. Although he did not get caught up in seeking awards and praise, he was very much fueled by how underappreciated he felt. In actuality, he was the one who really kept the firm going, running all aspects of the firm's operations.

When Lew was promoted to co-CEO in 1983, he began to gain the necessary power to make a move toward taking over control of Lehman Brothers from Peter Peterson. Lew's hard work, long history of performance, and ability to forge relationships had already gained him some strong supporters within the company, such as Bob Rubin, Eric Gleacher, and Jim Boshart. In addition to a set of allies who had influence within the company, he was also very aware of the chinks in Peterson's armor. After battling some health and personal issues in the prior years, Peterson no longer had the grit that he had possessed early in his career, and he would likely not have the energy or desire to fight to remain in control of the company. Also, Peterson heavily relied on Lew to keep operations running smoothly. In that sense, Peterson was much more expendable to the firm than Lew was. All these other factors, coupled with a highly lucrative severance package for Peterson, made Lew believe that he had garnered enough power to make a power play. Lew was confident that this was his time to make a push to be the sole CEO. Frankly, if he had miscalculated and gone about this wrong, he could have lost his livelihood, because he lived for Lehman Brothers.

Lew's power play was a success, but there were many factors at play, some of which were created by Lew and others which he merely benefitted from without creating himself. With Lew being an "inside guy", he had his hand on the pulse of organization, and he saw a window of opportunity in which Peterson's power was diminishing. Peterson, who many felt was self-centered and disinterested, continued to build foes who could no longer tolerate his egotistical ways. For all that Peterson had done to revive the firm in the 70s, he had done more to alienate the people of Lehman. Peterson had lost touch with the company and its employees, so much so that he was clueless to the growing list of adversaries to him. Lew knew he had to take advantage of Peterson's shrinking popularity. In addition, Peterson was so focused on both his and the company's image that he would rather be pushed out than put up a fight and possibly have his name and legacy tarnished. Clearly, Peterson made himself vulnerable to Lew's power play, but Lew is plenty deserving of credit for bringing this power play to fruition. Lew was a proven money maker, and at a firm filled with so much greed, making money spoke volumes. Also,