The news in business has been full of falling stars lately. "Is it just me," a friend asked the other day, "or does it seem as if half of the CEO supernovas from two years ago have crashed and burned?" In light of the economic turmoil I could understand how he had gotten this impression, but could not really agree that we have seen a marked increase in flameouts. What I believe we are seeing, instead, is the usually hidden processes of management selection highlighted by the sudden glare of publicity, which has been fired by the dot-com collapse, the accounting scandals, and Wall Street's reversals.

What the bull-market years partially obscured for those who are not inside the upper echelons of business is that some things never change, and one of those things is that there is no simple explanation for anything. An earthquake in a single market, such as that which hit the telecommunications field last year, may seem huge, capable of changing the way we live (or at least the way we invest). But it's just a part of the underlying shifts that are constantly taking place, the process of what the first theorist of dynamic capitalism, Joseph Schumpeter, called creative destruction.

A natural result of those shifts is the departure of chief executives, presidents, and other leaders. The truth about company leaders is that, while businesses come in all sizes, leaders tend to come in two: The grower and the overseer. The problem is that the two rarely if ever come in the same package. Growing into a big company and managing a big company require a CEO to practice two different disciplines, involve two different mind-sets, and tend to force companies to live two different lives.

The kind of person who can go in, find the locations for and set up 19 restaurants, and float the company with investors usually has one sort of energy. But he or she probably won't bring the same spark to the challenge of successfully managing the restaurants, retaining employees, dealing with competitors and keeping the larger endeavor on an even keel during economic ups and downs.

What's happened recently may seem simple: Conditions have swung to a decidedly unfavorable climate for growth companies. But that's not really the case. The companies that have crashed to earth were mature growth companies that failed to understand their relative position in the business firmament. They, or rather their leaders, insisted on treating them like growth-for-growth's-sake model. And, from the looks of things today, not one of them knew what to do next -- or at least couldn't make the transition.

Falling stars and supernovas

It might help to return to that metaphor of falling stars and supernovas. To compare a company to the space program, imagine a spectacular space shuttle launch. It's stunning, and certainly presents the image of thundering success. Now think back those ungainly Apollo spacecraft, then back to the small Mercury capsule, then before that to the poor monkey strapped into a nose cone, and before that to the basketball-size sputnik. There's your classic growth arc, going up in stages, getting bigger and bigger.

That's rocket science for you, too. The rocket scientists see their problem as getting into space, and getting there on a big enough scale to grab the market share. That's what our space program did. Now we virtually own space. Our competition is so weak we subsidize them, the way Microsoft subsidizes Apple, just to keep our options open.

The Gap, AOL Time Warner, Levi Strauss, Pepsi, J.Crew -- all of these companies found themselves in orbit, but once there, floundering. While it takes a rocket scientist to launch and grow a company, it takes a rocket genius to maintain a company in orbit. A rocket genius finds a compelling, self-sustaining economic reason to be up in orbit, and then manages the expanded and unwieldy company to support that reason.

A CEO today's first task is to figure out where your company is on the growth arc. First burn? Good. Second stage? Excellent. But if you've reached escape velocity, or you're in space, and you haven't got a plan for what comes next -- better get cracking.

Next is the biggest question a CEO may ever face, because it's one he poses to himself: Am I a grower or an overseer? No matter what the answer, he faces the decisions that will determine whether he keeps his position up there in the heavens or comes plunging down to earth. He must take steps to surround himself with executives whose vision and strength don't just mirror his own.

If he's a grower, his task is to shore up successes, to manage slower growth without losing the fire. Worse, he may have to rip up and reinvent the culture of the executive suite, which is probably a reflection of himself. Finally, he must manage these changes while retaining the inspiring, driven quality that made him a success.

This won't be easy. It could be that the smart thing is to recognize when your temperament and talents have become a poor fit with your company.