Being too passive is the main reason that CEOs get fired, according to a study released Monday by Leadership IQ, a Washington-based provider of training services.

The four-year study, which was based on 1,087 interviews, showed that 31 percent of CEOs get fired for mismanaging change, 28 percent for ignoring customers, 27 percent for tolerating low performers, 23 percent for denying reality and 22 percent for too much talk and not enough action.

Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ, said in an announcement that the research shows that the common belief that CEOs get fired because of poor financial performance is not necessarily the case.

"We get fixated on current financial performance," he said. "But if that was really the whole story, every CEO who ever missed a quarterly target or lost money would be immediately dismissed."

Murphy said the board members surveyed indicated that they understand stock prices, profits and revenues are not going to grow exponentially every quarter. "However, they do need confidence that the CEO is going to take the actions necessary to achieve growth over time," he said.

Here's some advice to anyone hoping to break the $100,000-a-year salary mark: Make $90,000 first.

Those words of wisdom come from Marc Cenedella, president of TheLadders, a job search firm specializing in connecting executives and companies in the $100,000-plus market.

Business is booming, Cenedella says. The two-year-old company has jumped from three employees in February 2001 to 56 today, indicating there are a lot of executives out there earning good money and looking for more.

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niversity of Michigan business professor Dave Ulrich believes passionately in the ability of human resources to become a vehicle to drive growth and create value. The HR Value Proposition, a new book Ulrich wrote with fellow Michigan professor Wayne Brockbank, presents a 14-point blueprint to make HR indispensable, ways companies can better develop their professionals and, most important, their case for why this is a great time to be in the field.

Which factors are now having the most impact on how HR functions?
Three things are driving change: A company's leaders, investors and customers. The pressure for quality forces leaders to rethink a lot of this, but knowing is not doing. Ninety percent of companies pay attention to values, but far less take any definitive action. One catalyst is when we hook what we do to external realities, like a company's stock price or its reputation. A company can be more humane because it worries about profit.

What problems do you find most persistent? What are the things that leaders or HR professionals have trouble overcoming?
Paralysis. Companies are afraid to try. What they need to realize is that some things are worth doing, even if it's done poorly. The first round is never perfect. In the late '80s and early '90s there was a movement toward improving quality of produced goods. Before you could do that, you had to go through training, then process control. Find a simple place to start. Instead of talking about it, we need to do it.

Which of the "old" ideas still works best in the new age of HR?
Old ideas are not necessarily bad. Giving employees tools and training has always been important, but now the focus has to fall more on capability. One way is for companies to involve customers and suppliers in training senior managers, inviting them even if they no longer do business with the company to say, "Last year, this is why went to a competitor."

Is the type of comprehensive strategy you outline applicable to smaller companies?
If anything, they're more applicable for a smaller company, where the HR profession is really more a part of the business. There are fewer boundaries between the business and its people, and more opportunities to create value.

If you could point to the most important concept you hope people take away from your work, what is it?
It's a French saying: plus que hier, moines que demain. Our challenge is to be more than today and less than tomorrow. Inside the firm, the mission of human resource professionals should center on building value and being able to say, "When we do business in India and China, here are the requirements to do that. Here are the 20 percent of clients who comprise 80 percent of our revenue. These are the key investors. And these are the intangibles." The HR person of the future is going to be a player who creates value for shareholders.