Michael Geoghegan clearly demonstrates how to lose everything by throwing one's toys out of the pram

Threatening to resign is a common technique among the investment banker seeking to improve his/her lot. Given that bonuses this year will probably be modest, it may become more even more common come January.

However, as Geoghegan shows, it is to be used with care.

As chief executive of HSBC, Geoghegan was having a good time. He'd spent forty years with the bank, but only four years' in the very top job. He got 800k a year in allowances and 'benefits in kind' to cover the move to Hong Kong earlier this year, where he's still in the process of doing up a deluxe pad overlooking the harbour at the bank's expense.

In future, Geoghegan also had the prospect of becoming chairman, a role which has traditionally been occupied by HSBC's former chief execs.

Now, however, Geoghegan is apparently retiring at Christmas and won't be chief executive or chairman. Nor will he probably get to live in the special house overlooking the harbour.

According to the Financial Times, it's all because he didn't want work alongside the potentially bossy figure of John Thornton as chairman. Earlier this week, there were rumours that Geoghegan was threatening to throw his pacifier on the pavement and resign unless he got to be chairman and chief exec.

Geoghegan denied that he'd threatened any such thing, but his departure looks a lot like an admission that he did.

His going is good news for HSBC investment bankers, who get to be led by Stuart Gulliver instead. But it's a warning for anyone who thinks that threats, tantrums, prima-donna-ish behaviour, and pacifier lobbing are the way to get ahead. They are not. No one is indispensable.