The ejection of Home Depot chief Robert Nardelli could potentially have some salutary effects on corporate governance. Finally, the gadflies and shareholder activists are getting some respect, reports the New York Times.

Of course, Nardelli was an easy target. He was making an outrageous amount of money and the company and its stock price was stagnating. The roll-out of the plan to sell to contractors and rely less on do-it-yourselfers never really fought off the challenge from Lowe's.

But the new generation of "gadflies" aren't as gaddy as they used to be. Relational Investors, the investment group that can claim Nardelli's scalp, has the perfectly obvious agenda of any investor - to maximize the value of the investment. Many of these managers are finally speaking out and demanding that companies actually perform. As Relational's chief Ralph Whitworth tells the paper, "I still have to make threats, but now everyone wants to deal with us fast. They realize we’ve got real power and we’re here to stay."

The other element in all this is finding a board that finally did its job. The head of the Home Depot compensation committee, Kenneth Langone, finally got sick of Nardelli's self-righteous insistence on not taking a pay cut and pulled the trigger. And did so even though he had been the CEO's friend, reports the Times.

Not everyone is happy though. Langone has been an unstinting supporter of the money paid to former New York Stock Exchange chief Richard Grasso. One investment manager says that Langone's golden parachute (over $200 million) was Langone's work and that he's the problem, not the solution.