DETROIT -- General Motors CEO Dan Akerson believes his successor should be a "change agent" who can guard against any complacency that could allow the automaker to slip back into bad habits, he said during an interview this week.
"There's no prototypical CEO," Akerson told Automotive News, a sister publication of Automotive News Europe. "A good leader has to be innately bright, intellectually curious. They have to be a change agent, never satisfied with the status quo."
Akerson, 65, didn't comment on a timetable for his departure. Reuters reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources, that Akerson could step down sometime in 2014, but that he hasn't formally notified the board of his plans and GM hasn't begun a search for his replacement.
Akerson, who took GM's top post in September 2010, said that the choice of successor ultimately will be up to GM's board, of which he is chairman.
