Four years ago, Bob McDonald declared himself “honored” to be succeeded by A.G. Lafley as chief executive of Procter & Gamble Co. (PG). McDonald called Lafley “one of the greatest CEOs in P&G history.”

In the same December 2009 press release, Lafley said, “I am retiring with confidence in Bob McDonald and his team. This is the right time to complete our management transition.”

Or, maybe it wasn’t. McDonald no doubt felt less honored to be succeeded this week by Lafley, who was asked by the board of the Cincinnati-based consumer-goods empire to resume the CEO role after McDonald’s abrupt decision to retire.

Under McDonald, P&G’s profit margins, market share and stock price lagged relative to peers such as Unilever PLC (UL), Colgate-Palmolive Co. (CL) and Clorox Inc. (CLX).

Critics in the investment community have blamed McDonald for allowing lower-priced competitors to win market share from such gilded P&G brands as Tide detergent and Pampers diapers, and for being slow to capitalize

Corporate America is in the midst of an obsession with "shareholder value."

This narrow measure of company performance holds that what's good for a company's stock price is also what's good for the company and its customers and employees. So, for better and worse, many of today's CEOs are judged primarily by their stock prices.

Capitalizing on this theme, Bloomberg has put together a list of CEO "underachievers"--big company CEOs whose stocks have done the worst relative to the broader market since the beginning of each CEO's tenure.

Meg Whitman of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) sits atop the list, with HP's stock having underperformed by a startling 30 percentage points since she took the job.

James Gorman of Morgan Stanley (MS) and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America (BAC) hold the 5th and 6th slots, with both banks having struggled in the past couple of years.

And, not surprisingly, the staggeringly well-compensated CEO of Occidental Petroleum (OXY), Stephen Chazen, owns a place in the top