Most companies start with last year’s budget or some other form of historical baseline (‘the anchor’), but what if the anchor is replaced by zero?

Being bold and right is far easier said than done, but the best CEOs show courage to act in the face of uncertainty. Focusing on those 18 responsibilities, we conducted extensive research to determine what mindsets and practices distinguish excellent CEOs. We mined our proprietary database on CEO performance, which is the largest of its kind, containing 25 years’ worth of data on 7,800 CEOs from 3,500 public companies across 70 countries and 24 industries. We also drew on what we’ve learned from helping hundreds of CEOs to excel, from preparing for the job and transitioning into it, through navigating difficult decisions and moments of truth, to handing their responsibilities over to a successor. We concluded there is no clear pattern. The key takeaway was that despite their different approaches, every CEO at every stage of their tenure meaningfully tended to all six responsibilities.”We support new CEO transition planning, from strategic aspiration-setting and developing the CEO’s transformation agenda, to the tactics of planning the first 100 days. Other areas of focus include building a high performing executive team, creating organizational alignment, fostering board and other stakeholder relationships, and managing one’s own personal operating model. Throughout, we bring CEOs from multiple organizations together for in-person learning, exploration, and development, as well as provide practical playbooks, tools, and insights to make their first few months in role a jumping off point to success in their tenure as CEO. Paying more attention to their employees health and wellbeing, racial diversity, and feelings of inclusion. Excellent CEOs understand the risk/reward trade-offs of potential big moves and study to downside scenario. Having imperfect information when making decisions is common, so a decision tree may need to be employed. Stage one: Once your successor is announced, you will still largely run the company for two to three months to give them time to do their listening tour and sharpen their thoughts on how they want to run the company. During this time, you’ll also give them full exposure to what the role entails, share the rationale behind past decisions, discuss strengths and weaknesses of the top team and the organization at large, and warmly hand off important stakeholder relationships (for example, large customers, investors, regulators, suppliers, and community leaders). This is also when you can offer them some “live, with a safety net” learning opportunities (roles in senior staff meetings, town halls, board meetings, etcetera) so they can get a good feel for what it means to sit in the driver’s seat.

As Nooyi suggests, any sense of loss is typically short lived, as it becomes clear that life can be even more vibrant, interesting, and fulfilling when you are freed of the constraints of the corporate calendar. You can invest more in personal relationships and use your experience to make a difference in many spheres. “A good time to step down,” shares former ICICI Bank CEO K. V. Kamath, “is when you see you can do a lot more exciting things outside than you sense you can do within the organization.” As the leader, you have the power – and the responsibility to raise the level of ambition in your organisation.” Second, we asked about the specific and pragmatic actions they are taking as a result of these signals. Here we found that a consistent mix of defensive (protecting against risks) and offensive (capturing new opportunities) maneuvers create a powerful playbook for leaders in 2023, the details of which we discuss in this article. 1. Actions to deal with digital disruption Vik is a senior partner in New York. For 35 years, he has served clients across a range of industries and his consulting experience covers performance transformation, corporate strategy, business-unit strategy, growth strategy, organizational effectiveness, and operational improvement.Being a CEO at any of the world’s largest companies is among the most challenging roles in business. Billions, and even trillions, are at stake—and the fates of tens of thousands of employees often hang in the balance. Yet, even when “can’t miss” high-achievers win the top job, very few excel. Thirty percent of Fortune 500 CEOs last fewer than three years, and two out of five new CEOs are perceived to be failing within eighteen months. Masahiko Uotani of Shiseido changed ‘Create a Japanese beauty products icon’ to ‘Create iconic global beauty brands with Japanese heritage.’ Learn more about our People & Organizational Performance Practice. Is leadership different in a hybrid workplace?