Jack Welch retired from GE in 2001. He was voted Manager of the Century in 1999.
This article: > In 2015, GE was the third largest manufacturer of wind turbines globally by both capacity and revenue, trailing only Vestas and Siemens. By 2023, it had fallen to 8th and had a more limited geographical market than either Siemens Gamesa or Vestas.
Translated: 14 years after Jack Welch retired (edit to add: and 14 of 17 years into Jeff Immelt’s term as CEO), GE was #3. 8 years later, they had fallen to #8, so clearly Jack Welch is to blame for the slip. /s
This also ignores the impact of long term bets and changes in the environment may cause you to be unsuccessful in the path you’ve taken for nearer term success and survival.
We live in a world where CEOs get truly absurd pay packages. I don't think that it's unreasonable to expect Welch's successors to justify their own pay.
His rank and yank also highly optimized for the short term, and stock markets loved it. He may well have given rise to that whole corporate mindset - "quarterly profits over long term results", leading to debacles like their battle with the EPA (Welch hilariously argues that it was a witch hunt, and that PCBs are apparently just fine to go in the water supply).