看到CEO的盲点

Strategy & Corporate Finance PracticeSeeing CEO blind spots From overconfidence early in a tenure to a lack of strategic clarity lateron, blind spots can emerge throughout a CEO’s journey. Here’s whatto watch out for. by Scott Keller Like the seasons of the year,the CEO journey progresses through four stages. Each stagebrings a unique set of opportunities and challenges, just as spring, summer, fall, and winter do: —Spring: Stepping up to the role.In the two to three years before the board decides on thenext CEO, you should be gaining the experience, developing the skills, and demonstrating thequalities of an exceptional leader. Doing so will position you as a natural choice when the timecomes and will prepare you to take the reins should you get the job. —Summer: Stepping into the role.During your first two years in the CEO role, you should getthe organization to work at full potential productivity in the direction you’ve chosen. Duringthis time, you should take bold actions that set the tone for your entire tenure. —Fall: Staying ahead while in the role.After starting strong, your next challenge will be toshape the company’s long-term journey and combat complacency—both your own and thatof your employees. This means creating successive “S-curves” (periods of intense activityand radical improvement) that will boost performance at every level: you as a leader, yourteam, and the organization as a whole. —Winter: Sending it forward to the next CEO.In this final stage, you’re preparing to hand overthe reins to your successor. That process involves recognizing when to leave, navigating thetransition gracefully, and discovering your next journey. When Carolyn Dewar, Vikram Malhotra, and I wrote theNew York Timesbestselling bookCEOExcellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest(Scribner, March2022), our goal was to create a comprehensive reference book for CEOs who want to masteraspects of the job that loom large ineveryseason. Since then, our research and counselinghave gone deep into what advice senior leaders will most benefit from in eachseparateseason,much like theFarmers’ Almanacprovides seasonal suggestions for its readers to optimize theirannual cycles. This is the focus of our upcoming book,A CEO for All Seasons: Mastering the Cycles ofLeadership(Scribner, October 2025), which features our colleague Kurt Strovink as a newcoauthor. An excerpt from the book follows. Understanding the value at stake We wanted first to understand the value of excellence in each season. Our extensive researchlooked at many factors of CEO performance, including their company’s excess TSR delivered(the total financial return to shareholders in excess of the return of industry peers), the CEO’sethical conduct, employee sentiment, the organization’s environmental and societal impact,the strength of succession planning, and, in the cases of those who had retired, whether thebusiness continued to outperform financially in the years after they stepped down. Based on these factors, we developed a list of 200 CEOs who can be credibly consideredthe best in the world in recent history. By definition, these CEOs delivered above-market andabove-industry returns to their shareholders during their tenure. So much so, in fact, that weestimate the economic value created by this group of 200 leaders to be a stunning $5 trillionmore than that of their peers. That’s more than the annual GDP of Germany, the world’s third-largest economy. What we were most interested in, however, was how they faredduring each season. Did theystart strong and simply ride the momentum from there? Or perhaps they hit a “sophomore slump,”which they found a way to reverse during the rest of their middle years? Or did they move slowlyand steadily until the foundation was in place to achieve “hockey stick”–style impact towardthe end of their tenure? Exhibit 1 shows that the answer was none of the above: The best CEOsperform better duringall fourseasons. Exhibit 1CEOBlindSpotsExhibit 1 of 2 The best CEOs generate higher total shareholder returns than their peersat every stage. Performance of the best CEO cohort relative to market and industry, anniversary-to-anniversaryannualized average monthly TSR, by year of tenure,% McKinsey & Company Do these results mean that these leaders didn’t make mistakes along the way? They’ll be the firstto admit that they most definitely did. What’s remarkable, though, is that like a coach whose teammight have lost a game to a lesser opponent early in the season but still qualified for the playoffsand won the championship, these CEOs were able to sense, learn, and act quickly so that theynever endured a losing season. As with many high achievers in other fields, those in the business world who achieve the mosttend to be those who are the best at getting better. Sam Hazen, CEO of HCA Healthcare,describes how he keeps improving his performance: “I’m in my seventh year as CEO, and despiteour succe