A war leader unsuited for peacetime? The removal of Fritz Henderson as chief executive of General Motors just as the carmaker emerges from bankruptcy smacks of ingratitude. In the driving seat for just eight months, Mr Henderson is seen as a victim of a “killer board”. He helped bring the carmaker back from the brink but was the wrong man to take GM back to the market in a forthcoming initial public offering.

His exit is a harbinger of an impending reversal in the recent decline in CEO turnover rates. During the financial crisis, western companies stuck nervously with the leaders they knew. In the UK, for example, where CEO turnover fell a remarkable 50 per cent year on year in the first half of 2009, according to Manchester Square Partners, boardroom bloodletting will return with a vengeance once conditions normalise. This is no bad thing. It is fashionable to lament the decline in chief executive longevity as evidence of the same short-termism evident in the ever briefer periods that institutional investors hold stock. This is overdone. The argument that leadership continuity invariably improves corporate performance should be treated with suspicion. Decreasing longevity is merely the byproduct of a decade of corporate governance reforms aimed at boosting c-suite accountability.

If a board is going to muster the energy to act – and most do anything to avoid confrontation – it stands a better chance of doing so before the chief executive can entrench himself by forging personal ties. Sure, there is little to recommend a gladiatorial thumbs up or down type of evaluation of the boss after 100 days – that would encourage blink-style judgments based on first impressions. But eight months is surely time enough for a considered verdict. More companies need boards with this killer instinct.