What do CEOs have in common with cult leaders and serial killers? Well, quite a bit, actually, if you believe a survey by a company calling itself Jericho Communications.

As I wrote in a recent Ragan Report front page, Jericho sent a survey to the CEOs of all the Fortune 1000 companies, and received 208 responses. Here are some of the key findings of the survey:

· When asked what motivates them the most, 43 percent of the executives said 'fear.' Second place, with 22 percent, was 'power.' Only 7 percent (7!) said 'wealth.' Surprisingly, not one said 'The private jet, clothes allowance, expense account, and other perks that allow me and my family to live like the royal family of Saudi Arabia.' Maybe there wasn't space on the survey for a write-in answer.

· Most CEOs were closer to their mothers than their fathers. 37 percent said their mom was their idol, while only 18 percent said it was their father. Nobody admitted that they wanted to actually kill their father and sleep with their mother . . . but again, there may not have been any space for write-ins.

· More than half of the CEOs said they were unpopular in grade school. Only 4 percent said they were popular. That one we believe.

· Their favorite fictional leader is Captain James T. Kirk. That's right, the dude from Star Trek.

· When asked for their most inspirational book, the majority listed The Bible. A close second was Moby Dick. A follow-up question revealed that 100 percent of the CEOs were unaware that at the end of Moby Dick, the whale wins.

So there you have it, a nice little snapshot of your average CEO. But there's only one problem. It's all nonsense. When you add up all those qualities, here's what you get:

A man who lives in fear while thirsting after power; a man who was tormented by schoolyard bullies in grade school; a mamma's boy who idolizes his mother; a man who lives in a fantasy world; and a religious zealot who looks to the Bible for inspiration.

I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound like any CEO I've ever met. In fact, it sounds like a psychopath. It sounds like a weird combination of Hannibal Lecter, David Koresh, Jeffrey Dahmer and Jim Jones.

Or John Ashcroft.

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It's dark in there

Speaking of CEOs, the summer issue of The Public Relations Strategist is devoted to getting 'Inside the Mind of the CEO.' There are some excellent articles in it, but I'm always a little leery when someone tries to 'get inside the mind' of a large group of people.

I mean, not all CEOs think the same, do they? They all worry about profits, sure. They all worry about the competition, sure. But for every one thing they have in common, there are at least 10 differences, I would think. Some worry about employees, some see employees as a necessary evil, for example.

I'm sure if you went 'inside the mind' of Jack Welch, it would be a vastly different place than the mind of, say, Herb Kelleher from Southwest Airlines. And when Ken Lay was running Enron, the inside of his mind was probably a tad bit different than Michael Eisner's gray matter.

And we certainly hope that the inside of Barry Diller's mind works differently than the mind of HP CEO Carly Fiorina . . . or we might have another New Jersey Governor-like speech looming on the horizon.

Industries are different, people are different, companies are different. There is no 'one mind' of a CEO, just as there is no 'one mind' of an engineer, an accountant, a salesperson, or an employee communicator.

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When employees are truly insane

I found this sentence in an employee publication about seven minutes ago:

'Dirty Harry is 40 years old and as large as a softball. He's by far the most ornery. Roswell has red eyes and looks like an alien. Lock-n-Load is very curious and outgoing.'

No, it's not a colorful description of the company's Board of Directors. It's a story about a woman who collects hermit crabs. Yes, hermit crabs. And yes, it's in the employee publication.

Here's the lead: 'If Laura Whilenger seems a little crabby at times, there's a reason. The legal administrative assistant lives with 130 hermit crabs. Her two children and husband call her the Crab Diva.'

Sure they do. To her face, maybe. But we'll bet dollars to donuts that 'fruitcake,' 'freakazoid,' and 'loony bird' come up a lot more than 'crab Diva.'

Can you imagine the conversations that go on in this home?

'Excuse me, crab Diva? Roswell pooped in the kitchen sink again.'

'Hey, crab Diva, Lock-n-load just took another chunk out of little Timmy's leg.'

'Um, crab Diva, when you finish feeding Dirty Harry, could you maybe help out with the laundry? They're starting to call me Stinky Pete down at work.'

I don't know what's scarier: that a woman shares her home with 130 oversized cockroaches with claws . . . or that this kind of story still appears in employee publications.

We have a lot of fun with these kinds of stories in Corporate Writer & Editor, where I write a regular column called the C.R.A.P Awards.

Got an example you'd like to send me? Drop me a line at steve@crescenzocommunications.com.