We may never hear Linda Yaccarino’s side of the X story: ‘There’s always a nondisclosure where you can’t set the story straight’

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Good morning. It’s clear that Linda Yaccarino was taking on a tough assignment when she became CEO of Twitter, now known as X, about two years ago. Her boss Elon Musk tweeted about a female CEO coming on board his newly acquired company before she’d even given her notice at NBC Universal.

“In reality, she will only ever be the Twitter COO for Musk; at worst, Musk’s executive PA,” my colleague Lila MacLellan quoted one PR expert as saying, when trouble was brewing a few months into the job.

Certainly Yaccarino is not the first leader to be overshadowed by a powerful boss. I’ve spoken with many over the years, from Jeff Immelt when Jack Welch delayed his exit from GE by a year to work on the Honeywell deal, to former CEOs at brands like Disney and Starbucks where a former boss boomeranged back without ever truly exiting stage left.  

I spoke with some experts this week about the unique challenges of being in such situations and how best to handle them. The first step is to set clear expectations and boundaries so that you have an option to leave with your reputation intact, CEO advisors told me. 

You try to build trust and may have to tolerate sharing the spotlight with a predecessor who continues to linger down the hall. (A familiar refrain in some family-owned companies.) “It’s okay if the founder has a voice on certain topics. But if everyone still looks to the predecessor for leadership, that’s a problem,” Constantine Alexandrakis, CEO of Russell Reynolds Associates said.

And if it doesn’t work out, either take the money and enjoy the relief or write with a book that lets you write your own history. Though, as one ousted CEO told me recently, “the problem is there’s always a nondisclosure where you can’t set the story straight.”

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com