The

CEO
Report
Embracing the
Paradoxes of Leadership
and the Power of Doubt

 Table of contents
3. Executive summary
4. Leading at the intersection: The CEOs changing role
6. Change: Understanding speed, scope, and significanceS3
10. Ripple intelligence: Building a CEO early-warning system
14. The power of doubt: Finding comfort in discomfort
18. Authenticity and adaptability: Bridging the master paradox
22. Finding balance: Choosing between right and right
26. Todays CEO: Embracing continual growth and renewal
30 Whats next: Ensuring success beyond succession
32. The CEO agenda: Global trends and accountabilities
34. Acknowledgments
35. Method/About our sample

Executive summary

he role that business plays in society, and the

expectations about the role it should play,
have shifted dramatically in recent years.
Along with this shift, societys expectations
about CEOs have changed too. This report, which presents
the findings from our interviews with more than 150 CEOs
around the world, explores such issues along with the
central question: how do senior executives develop the
competence to lead in a changing world?
Declining tenure rates and levels of public trust suggest
that CEO leadership has not kept pace with increased
expectations. Better technical skills are, at best, part of the
answer. Few of the CEOs we interviewed mentioned them
at all. Instead, many spoke candidly about the gaps in their
preparedness and the need to keep developing, particularly
when it comes to dealing with heightened scrutiny from
an array of stakeholders. Indeed, the role of the CEO is
becoming more complex as competing and increasingly
vocal stakeholders permeate organizations. Leading at
this intersection requires new thinking; past experience
is no longer a reliable guide for future action.
What we learned is that success as a CEO today
hinges on continual growth in the role, even more than on
the preparation beforehand. In this report, we outline a suite
of integrated perspectives and capabilities, drawn from our
conversations with CEOs, that can help todays leaders
as well as tomorrows thrive in a business environment
marked by uncertainty and constant change.
When CEOs talk of change, speed is the mantra of
the moment. But this preoccupation may misdirect energy
and attention to events that seem urgent, but in fact are
of limited scope or significance. To prioritize, delegate,
and manage their energy effectively, CEOs need to be
equally attuned to the speed, scope, and significance (S3)
of each challenge they face.
Anticipating how, when, and why different contexts
may interact to disrupt an organization requires the
development of ripple intelligence, a CEOs earlywarning system. Visualizing interactions of simultaneous
events as ripples on a pond can help leaders expect
the unexpected and thus be more prepared to seize
opportunities. Our global trends survey (page 32) shows
what is currently at the top of the CEO agenda.
Ripple intelligence gets sharpened as CEOs learn to
harness the power of doubt. Leaders who embrace doubt

as a positive state that is both emotional and intellectual

can select different strategies to mobilize, even outsource
their doubts in service of better decisions. Such skills matter
in an environment where chasing certainty is often futile.
Facing relentless pressure for change, CEOs
consider adaptability a must, but thereby risk
overstretching their personal sense of purpose, and
thus their authenticity. Nonetheless, CEOs can adapt
authentically, through better definition and alignment
of personal and organizational purpose.
Being both adaptable and authentic is just one
leadership paradox that CEOs seek to embrace. Faced
with competing, yet equally valid, stakeholder demands,
CEOs increasingly face paradoxical situations of choosing
between right and right. To get the best of both
worlds, CEOs need to first balance their personal paradoxes
so they can find balance for their companies and align their
personal and organizational purpose.
These capabilities are rarely fully formed when CEOs
get the job. Yet the amount of on-the-job learning required
is typically underestimated. To maintain their edge in times
of complexity and change, CEOs commit to sustained
renewal, continuously seeking ways to reignite their own
development in life-cycles of personal growth.
We undertook this study because we believe CEOs
have a critical role to play in, and beyond, business.
Declining tenure and public trust suggest that CEOs
have not kept in step with changing expectations of
leadershipin business or society. Drawing on CEOs
personal experiences, we conclude with practical and
actionable ideas to support todays CEOs and provide
a guide for future generations

To let the CEOs speak for themselves, we draw on

numerous anonymous quotes, featured throughout
this report. We assured our interviewees anonymity,
allowing open reflection on their leadership challenges
and experiences. Open-ended questions encouraged
elaboration and gave us a glimpse of todays business
world through the eyes of its most senior practitioners.
Each interview lasted an average of 55 minutes and, with
few exceptions, was conducted face-to-face. All interviews
were anonymized prior to analysis by researchers at Sad
Business School, University of Oxford.

Leading at the intersection:

The CEOs changing role
Once business was impervious. You could operate and the
world around you could be a vortex of activity, but you could just
keep going. Now, with the combination of all the factors at play,
business and whats happening outside are actually one.

he views of the senior executive quoted above,

one of the more than 150 CEOs we spoke
with, suggests the sense of unease that many
business leaders express when they reflect on
the nature of their roles and the leadership challenges they
face. Indeed, three-quarters of the CEOs we interviewed
feel the job has changed significantly over the past decade
as new influences from outside the organization compete
with the traditional accountabilities to boards, shareholders,
employees, and customers.
To be sure, the CEO role is still the top of the heap
when viewed from afar. Yet closer in, CEOs sit at the
intersection of two increasingly complex and transparent
worlds: one outside the organization and one inside (Figure
2). Stakeholders are proliferating, and CEOs must navigate
politics, geopolitical unrest, natural disasters, government,
regulators, competitors, and a digitally empowered public
that in one CEOs words is coming out of everywhere. How
do you manage transparency [so] you have consistency,
and at the same time realize that not everything has to be
said, but everything thats important has to be said.
The degree of transparency that CEOs face, where
every decision can be googled and analyzed from multiple
angles in real time, requires a different awareness and skill
set. Not only do CEOs need to be more cognizant of the
outside world and its influence, but they need to understand
how to interact, influence, and respond to it.
Against this backdrop, many CEOs acknowledge that
the traditional approaches to strategy no longer apply.
Several describe eliminating the conventional three-to-five-

The CEO Report | 4

Figure 1: Has the role of the CEO changed?

>75%

14%

9%

Yes, role has

changed

No, role has

not changed, but
how I do it has

No, role has not

changed

Figure 2: From shareholder dominance

to stakeholder legitimacy
More porous organizational boundaries allow
broader, more diverse stakeholders to exert direct
influence, demand transparency, and increase
risks of exposure.
SHAREHOLDERS
& BOARD
STAKEHOLDERS

CEO
CEO

ORGANIZATION

ORGANIZATION

year planning cycle in favor of repeating, 100-day exercises.

Others are supplementing their primary strategies with
contingency plans that can be triggered quickly should
circumstances change. Trying to forecast the future, one
observes, has become an impossible task.
Being adaptable, resilient, flexible, and above all
ready is the new normal. Every successful business model
works until it doesnt, notes one CEO. This strategy were
working on today is going to be supplanted by something
else. Michael Porter used to talk about sustainable
competitive advantage There is no sustainable anymore,
but you still have to find competitive advantage.

Not everything has to be said,

but everything thats important
has to be said.

Hero or human?
Meanwhile, business leaders face new interpersonal
challenges. Notably, most of the CEOs we interviewed
spoke of the growing importance of being perceived as
more approachable, engaged, and caringin other words,
more human. Several describe emotion as playing a key
role in stakeholder engagement, while another refers to
the job as Chief Emotional Officer, adding: The best
leaders are human beings first and foremost.
The need to create trust across multiple groups affects
how CEOs communicate, listen, make decisions, and
manage their time. Providing detailed reports to analysts,
communicating high-level concepts to the press, and being
authentic with employees is spurring CEOs to seek new ways
to establish organizational values and culture, build teams,
and align their companies around a direction and purpose.
Nonetheless, CEOs are still expected to be heroic
leaders who own the chair, a fact of life that creates
tension as companies recognize the benefits of involving
more stakeholders in strategy, decision making, and
execution. One CEO describes how his employees,
customers, and board all expect him to be more human
when seeking their input on decisions, while at the same
time being confident and authoritative when it comes time
to make the call. He dubs his new approach to decision
making collaborative command.

The paths to the future are

made, not found, and the process
of making them changes both us
and our final destination.
Indeed, collaboration, listening, engagement, humility,
transparency, authenticity, values, and purpose were
recurring themes in our conversations. Unsurprisingly,
timeand time managementare critical challenges
as CEOs balance competing pressures, as is managing
personal energy and the energy of the organization. Finally,
several CEOs spoke about the difficulty of relying on past
experiences to anticipate future ones. As old approaches
lose their utility, leaders are increasingly looking to
become ongoing, iterative learners. In todays 24/7 world,
the CEO role seems 25/8. This ever-changing business
environment requires leaders who can change, too, and
in fact this ability to adapt will likely spell the difference
between successand struggle

KEY INSIGHTS
Globalization, digital connectivity, and
a proliferation of interested parties
have dramatically expanded the stakeholders
who influence and voice a point of view on
company performance.
In a world of connectivity and scrutiny, trust
comes at a premium, requiring CEOs to reinvent
how they communicate, lead, and set strategy.
Today CEOs are expected to be human
stewards for stakeholders, no longer heroic
agents of shareholders.
Past experience and traditional approaches
to strategy, control, and communication are
no longer reliable guides; CEOs today must
find new ways to establish organizational
values and culture, build teams, and align
their companies. They must lead at the
intersection of outside and inside, where
company ambition and stakeholder influence
blur, contradict, and sometimes compete.

Change: Understanding speed,

scope, and significanceS3

How would [Winston Churchill] be viewed today if every

decision he made was tweeted around the world?

or leaders, assessing the changes facing their

companies in these volatile and uncertain
times is difficult. Doing so under the realtime gaze of stakeholders ready to tweet
and retweet their own (and others ) assessments at
a moments notice compounds the challenge. Its
no surprise, then, that many leaders we spoke with
feel preoccupied with the pace of change (Figure 3).
Given the pressure, in some cases the compulsion,
to respond faster and faster to events, how can CEOs
ensure they are assessing the nature of the changes
appropriately while also determining how and when
significant change will impact their organizations? In
other words, how can CEOs lead continuous change
while also responding constantly to it? The key, our
research suggests, is to focus not only on the speed
of change, but on its scope and significance as well,
offering an S3 understanding of change (Figure 4).

Speed demons
CEOs routinely speak of the pressure todays pace
of change imposes on them, citing factors such
as disruptive new competitors and new market

The CEO Report | 6

channels, often digital. Predictably, many also cite

technological innovations, particularly the rise
of social media, as driving a ubiquitous sense of
urgency and pressure for increased transparency. In
fact, many CEOs view social media as a two-edged
sword, both a powerful tool for engaging in public
discussion with internal and external audiences, as
well as a potential source of exposure to challenges
about their leadership.
Some CEOs highlight the importance of
discerning the true speed of change. They caution that

Figure 3: When speaking of change

94%

emphasized its
pace or speed

Figure 4: From speed to scope and significanceevolving

your understanding of the interacting dimensions of change
A more granular understanding of change helps CEOs prioritize,
delegate, and allocate energy and resources. The impact of scope can
be difficult to predict: even systemic changes can have root causes that
were initially contained and localfor example, the seemingly localized
US sub-prime credit crunch that became the global financial crisis.

REVOLUTIONARY
EVOLUTIONARY

GLOBAL
FINANCIAL
CRISIS

SYSTEMIC
SCOPE

EE

SP

SIGNIFICANCE

a pervasive sense of urgency can mask the fact that

not all aspects of their environments are changing at
the same paceor even changing at all. Indeed, one
CEO points out that while his sector (banking) has
faced substantial changes, in many respects its core
principles remain the same.
Others emphasize the need for a long-term
perspective: The world has changed and stability is
different than before, observes one CEO, although
we have selective memory in the sense that we
think we are living in the most turbulent times you
can imagine. And another offers a healthy dose
of skepticism, saying: There is this mantra at the
moment that change is faster than its ever been and
therefore these kinds of issues are going to be greater
I dont really buy that.
When it comes to coping with the pace of
change, CEOs refer to several rules of thumb they use.
One describes aspiring to a more principles-based
leadership style so that she can spend the time,
rather than giving the answer, setting the stage and
context and then have other people work out what the
pieces are within it. Another describes how a well-

CONTAINED

US SUBPRIME

TECHNICAL

FOUNDATIONAL

There is this mantra at

the moment that change
is faster than its ever been
and therefore these kinds of
issues are going to be greater
I dont really buy that.
publicized problem in one business unit prompted
her to think through more systematically about how
to be both responsive and more organizationally
resilient. We had to learn how to do business
differently, and subsequently weve had to learn how
to react to the big external shocks, three or four of
them as weve gone along. And echoing the need
for resilience, another remarks: You have to look at
almost everything as something that could kill you,
and you have to have a battle plan for not only how
you are going to optimize it, but how are you going
to survive it.

Dont forget impact

While the focus on the speed of change is not
surprising, CEOs indicate that there are two additional,
more subtle dimensions of change that a preoccupation
with urgency can mask. In one CEOs words: You
have to separate the noise and the normal stuff from
fundamental shifts that are taking place, and then be
able to determine how quickly those shifts are going
to manifest or disrupt what youre doing, versus those
things that you have more time to adjust to.

You have to begin to sort out

the results that youre getting.
Are they a result of a broader
macroeconomic or industry shift
taking place, or are they more
enterprise-specific?

The second of these dimensions is the scope

of changethe size and extent to which a particular
event or trend is far-reaching. The greater the scope,
the more likely it will become significant and affect the
organization. Trends take different forms: for example,
geopolitical upsets like the conflict in Ukraine; economic
changes (for example, in energy prices); or health threats
like the Ebola crisis in Africa. The impact of scope can be
difficult to predict. Some changes may be more evidently
systemic, such as the recent global financial crisis;
others may generate substantial attention but actually
turn out to be more contained, with less impact.
The final dimension is significance, which refers
to how deeply any change affects the organization.
Predicting and assessing significance as data
accumulates is crucial. It means asking how, how fast,
and how much a particular event or trend will impact
the business. As one CEO notes, You have to begin to
sort out the results youre getting. Are they a result of
a broader macroeconomic or industry shift taking
place, or are they more enterprise-specific?

The CEO Report | 8

The recent drop in the price of oil highlights

the complexities involved in navigating the three
dimensions of change. The sheer speed and scope
of the price fall in the last twelve months has taken
most producers, experts, and consumers by surprise,
even though the fundamental economics driving the
price shift are well known: rising supply from shale
gas exploration in the US and weakening demand in
other large economies. While the full significance
of the changes remains to be seen, the implications
are likely to be far-reaching in scope and highly
significant for many businesses. Some industries
face the possibility of significant knock-on effects in
terms of growth, jobs, investment, and perhaps even
industry restructuring.

You have to separate the

noise level and the normal
stuff that goes on from
fundamental shifts that are
taking place, and then be able
to determine how quickly those
shifts are going to manifest or
disrupt what youre doing.
Accordingly, how any given change will affect
a particular company varies. Some changes will
influence the business model, strategy, or operations
of the business. We call these technical changes,
important but not deeply disruptive. But other changes
are more profound and foundational, challenging the
organizations mission and core values. What looks like
a purely technical decision can also have value-based
implications that make it foundational. Cyber threats,
for example, are likely to represent technical changes
for most businesses but will be foundational for a
smaller group, such as computer companies (though
what may initially appear technical can quickly become
foundational, as Sonys recent experiences with cyber

security suggest). Foundational changes often occur

when stakeholders make demands on the business that
cannot be ignored. In fact, many of these foundational
changes are fueled by ideological concerns, and that
means they have a strong impact on the significance
dimension of change. Therefore, they must be taken
seriously and addressed constructively. Whats
more, foundational challenges are likely to affect
the relationship between the personal values of the
CEO and the values of the organization. Such change
typically makes demands on the balance between the
CEOs needs for authenticity and adaptability, which
we discuss later.

We had to learn how to

do business differently, and
subsequently weve had to learn
how to react to the big external
shocks as weve gone along.
Untangling scope and significance is vital.
Seemingly large events may ultimately end up being
relatively insignificant; others may be small in scope but
prove highly significant because they trigger concerns
inside the business or among external interest groups,
particularly when social media becomes an amplifier.
Even for the CEO of a single product business with
a single facility, the challenges of dealing with scope
and significance can be demanding. For CEOs of larger
and more diversified businesses, questions of scope
and significance will be substantially greater as the
complexity of their environments multiplies, and as
stakeholders declare new agendas or more actively
pursue existing ones.
Ultimately, navigating change along its three
dimensions requires different competencies from
CEOs. Global operations mean they cant think onesize-fits-all, ignoring local conditions or impacts. They
need the capacity to scan the environment for emerging
trends that might appear isolated and contained, but

are actually interconnected in hard-to-predict ways,

creating ripples of significance that bring destruction,
opportunity, bothor neither.
For one CEO we interviewed, this means focusing
on the potential impact of the Muslim diaspora on
his business in Asia if the Middle East were to erupt
into general war. For another, this means scanning
more data than ever before as he constantly looks
to understand possible impacts to his business,
including from seemingly less obvious places. The
change landscape is constantly evolving, and any
given event or trend will mean different things
for particular industries, regions, and individual
businesses. Whats important is developing a
multi-dimensional approach to change that helps
CEOs understand and prioritize actions, direct
resources, and, crucially, reserve their own energy for
significant, large-scale challenges. Remembering that
fast doesnt necessarily mean urgent or important
is a critical first step in determining where to focus
attention. Diagnosing the likely impact of events and
trends means assessing scope and significance along
with speed

KEY INSIGHTS
Preoccupation with the pace of change
makes everything feel urgent and creates
a risk that CEOs will focus equally on
changes that dont demand equal focus.
Understanding the potential scope and
significance of change, in addition to speed,
allows CEOs to prioritize where and on what
they spend their time. How far-reaching is it
and how deeply will it shake the business?
This S3 approach to understanding
change helps CEOs prioritize, delegate,
and make time to focus where their attention
is most needed.
Constant re-evaluation of each dimension
helps CEOs reserve energy for significant,
large-scale challenges.

Ripple intelligence:
Building a CEO earlywarning system
In an ambiguous, rapidly changing environment, if you
havent got your antennae out youre going to struggle to
see opportunities and threats which may blindside you.

EOs who can anticipate quickly how

the landscape is changing, while also
understanding the scope and significance
of the changes, will be better equipped to
understand the full picture of risk facing their companies,
and thus will have the edge when it comes to identifying
new forms of competitive advantage. They should also
be less likely to find themselves blindsided, for example,
by unexpected twists in the markets or regions in which
they compete.
Its little surprise that so much has been said about
contextual intelligence in recent years, and in fact many of
the CEOs we interviewed discussed the need to understand
and interpret actions in a contextual way. At the same
time, many of the CEOs (some of whom lead companies
with operations in more than 100 countries) expressed
a broader concern about how contexts interact with one
another. In particular, the trends currently concerning
the CEOs we talked to include the global implications of
the growth of Asias middle class, the rise of megacities,
cyber threats, climate change, and income disparities.
(For a closer look, see The CEO agenda: Global trends
and accountabilities, on page 32 of this report).

The CEO Report | 10

Importantly, CEOs maintain that the goal of

understanding trends isnt necessarily to avoid risk, but
rather to become comfortable with it so as not to miss
opportunities or be paralyzed by inaction. Said one
CEO: Risk management is really [about] developing an
enterprise-wide willingness and readiness to study not
only the obvious risks, but the unthinkable ones.

Figure 5: Global trendstop issue identified in each region

LATAM

MENA

North America

Lack of values

Societal tensions
in Middle East &
North Africa

Cyber threats

APAC

Europe

Growing Asian
middle class

Cyber threats

Sub-Saharan
Africa

Unemployment

Figure 6: Sense the ripples to avoid the tsunami

Ripple intelligence is the ability to predict how trends
and contexts may intersect, interact, and change
direction, helping CEOs anticipate disruptions, make
time to plan, and protect against unexpected events.

FEET ON THE GROUND

Beyond context
Think of the effect of a rock dropped in a pond. Now
imagine the effect of multiple rocks (of different sizes)
thrown into those same waters. Add the effects of wind and
weather. In business terms, we can imagine the resulting
turbulence as ripples of context (a new competitors
entry, for instance, or a change in a customers buying
patterns), and the ability to understand how they will
change, intersect, and interact with one another as ripple
intelligence. In a world where the speed and scope of
change complicate judgments of significance for CEOs,
ripple intelligence represents an early-warning system for
leaders able to think systemically. One CEO puts it like
this: No one imagined a world in which the Middle East
would be in flames No one really [imagined] Russian
tanks in Eastern Ukraine, Crimea, whats going on in the
South China Sea plus the slowest, shallowest [economic]
recovery weve ever had. He went on to wonder: What if
this is just the new normal?
In this new normal, companies face big forces,
including, as another CEO noted, the rise of 2.2 billion new
middle-class consumers, technology going three times
faster than management, geopolitics. He continued by

35,000 FEET

observing: One of those [forces] would make the world

volatilea combination makes the world much more
volatile. On this new playing field, CEOs need to be
people that can handle a much higher degree of volatility,
uncertainty, and interdependence of factors they need
to be much more systemic thinkers.

You make a decision and theres

the follow-on repercussions
sometimes those issues can be as
big as the first one you dealt with.
Anticipating complex interactions gives CEOs
the time to plan a range of responses, and then choose
and execute as appropriate. Faster identification
of incoming ripples could help mitigate delays in
execution. Moreover, developing a keener sense of ripple
intelligence assists in strategy development, as it helps
CEOs better understand risks and connect the dots to

11

reveal new business opportunities at the confluence of

multiple emergent trends. Several CEOs pointed to the
power of disruptive innovations like digital imaging,
smartphones, and other technologies, and some see
the more recent confluence of broadband, big data,
and cloud computing as examples of places where the
new ability to see the wood, trees, and forest offers
tremendous opportunity for intelligence-led strategic
initiatives and maneuvers. For his part, one CEO told of
his reaction when, in the late 1990s, he began to realize
the implications of digital technologies on his industry:
It was staring me in the face we could see a few people
causing the collapse of [several Asian currencies]. As
those economies crashed we shut down all the selling
in those markets We made quite a lot of money that year
when the [rest of the industry] lost its shirt. So its what you
have to do, youre looking at all the angles.

CEOs need to be much

more systemic thinkers.
Be the rock
Of course, developing ripple intelligence also requires
the ability to understand the ripples created by the
business itself. Using ripple intelligence builds the CEOs
awareness of not just the companys direct impact, but
also how it may influence contexts that might otherwise
seem remote and unconnected. One CEO likens this to
anticipating the second bounce of the ballyou make
a decision and there are follow-on repercussions
sometimes those issues can be as big as the first one you
dealt with. However, there are practical limits to using
peripheral vision, as he acknowledges: Im not smart
enough to figure out what the third or fourth [bounce]
will be to get the second one right is enough.

Developing ripple intelligence

Our research suggests that, for most leaders, thinking
in this way doesnt come naturally. In particular, many
CEOs talked about the need to reprioritize and even let go
of the operational focus that had helped them reach their
positions. One CEO we spoke to does focus exclusively on

The CEO Report | 12

ripple intelligence, though, and his example offers useful

insights into the process. He explains that his executive
team handles the day-to-day so he can concentrate fully on
the 35,000-ft level, looking for ripples outside the company.
He spoke of hovering above the business, his customers,
consumers, competitors, and other market players,
continuously searching the environment for emerging
connections: I get a birds-eye view, he observes,
scanning the horizon and context without clutter.
Furthermore, he evaluates events along the change
dimensions of speed, scope, and significanceare ripples
game-changing, transient, significant (but not for him),
or slow-burn? With a second pass, he combines events
and ideas to look for patterns and trends. He seeks trends
and risks that might negatively impact the business as
well as those that could provide opportunities for the
company. The keys to this sort of environmental scanning
are contextual thinking and a long-term perspective.
As another CEO puts it, Its like when you ride a bicycle:
you always have to look a little bit furtherif you look
just in front of your wheel, you lose your balance.
In practice, this requires examining how ripples
from one event might interact with ripples from other
events in the short, medium, and long terms. Consider
the recent decline in oil prices (mentioned in the previous
section). Absent a sense of perspective, falling oil prices
might appear as the large ripple in the left foreground of
Figure 6a significant trend, but one whose immediacy
obscures anything more than glimpses of its short-term
effects (lower costs for consumers, an immediate boost
to oil-importing countries, and higher profits for
companies in energy-intensive industries, among others).
A CEO studying these ripples would see a limited
number of potential challenges and opportunities,
depending on his or her region and industry.

What if this is just

the new normal?
Combining this focus with a look at other trends
expected to occur over the medium and longer terms
effectively shifts the view to the 35,000-foot level depicted
in Figure 6. This reveals still more ripples, and the prospect

of additional insights into their individual and collective

scope, speed, and significance.
Continuing with the oil price example begun in
the previous section, consider Saudi Arabias recent
announcement that it will hold oil production steady
despite lower prices. Media speculation attributes
the decision to Saudi desires to pressure US shale oil
producers and punish Russia and Iran for supporting
Syrias government. In the short run, lower prices
will likely hurt shale producers and dampen capital
investment, although few expect it to affect the industrys
long-term development (what could do so, of course, are
societal concerns related to the industrys short-term
environmental impact, especially water pollution, as well
as its long-term impact on carbon emissions).

Every day we have a missile

pointed toward us. We dont know
how many or where it will fall. I cant
control everything, but I can remind
each of us where the risks are.
Meanwhile, in the short run, lower oil costs would
delay the development of renewable energy. Even further
out are the impacts of falling oil prices on OPEC countries,
and, in particular, the knock-on effects of the Saudis actions
over the longer term. How might it affect political tensions
in the Middle East (tensions that were a concern voiced
by several of the CEOs we spoke with)? The prospect of
increasing US oil independence arising from shale oil
production complicates the geopolitical landscape further
still. All of these factors represent ripples that could affect
companies in a swath of industries, and therefore should
be accounted for.
Tellingly, though, the importance of developing
ripple intelligence is often most evident in its absence. One
oil executive described the talent gap his industry faces
as a result of reduced hiring in response to past market
conditions this way: Oils a cyclical business and hiring
follows that pattern. When things are good you hire a lot;
when things are bad you dont. And so the whole industry

has a lot of people with more than 25 years experience,

a lot of people under 10, and not much in between.
As this example suggests, its often quite
difficult for CEOs to keep a finger on the pulse of
the business while simultaneously scanning the big
picture. Moreover, even a continuous big-picture focus
wont necessarily protect a company from the risk of
unknown unknowns that many CEOs mentioned in
our interviews. Therefore, CEOs also cope with complex
environments by building up their organizations
capacity for agile response. Some pointed toward
diversification to mitigate risk, speaking of sizable
but enough bets, while others maintain deep pockets
in order to ensure, as one put it, that we are debt-free
[so that] we can move out of a market within two
to three years anywhere in the world if we have to.
Of course, ripples that appear isolated and
unimportant may remain so. CEOs need to keep an
eye on emerging trends through their peripheral
vision, but avoid acting prematurely. Questioning all
three dimensions of change can help, as can building
awareness through continual learning and enlisting
divergent viewpoints. The trick is to recognize when it
is necessary to expand the problem solving space and
make the problem bigger, as one CEO suggests, and
when to move to a decision

KEY INSIGHTS
Ripple intelligence is the ability to anticipate
and judge how, when, and why contexts may
interact to fundamentally disrupt the business.
To discern and connect disparate events,
discover patterns, and anticipate distant
threats or opportunities, CEOs need to rise
above the clutter.
Evaluate emerging trendsare they gamechanging, transient, significant (but not for
you), or slow-burn?
New decisions create new ripples. Think
about how they will interact with the existing
ones to create more opportunities or threats.

13

The power of doubt: Finding

comfort in discomfort

If you dont doubt yourself in a constructive, positive way,

you are borderline dangerous for your company.

oubts are to CEOs what nerves are to elite

athletes: a source of focus and insight when
harnessed constructively, a threat to peak
performance when not. This was the spirit
in which many of the CEOs we talked to approached the
issue. Reimagining doubt in this way allows leaders to
sharpen their ripple intelligence, enhance their ability
to make decisions, and mitigate business and decision
making risks in times of complexity and uncertainty.
Clearly, doubt is a capability to be cultivated rather
than a weakness to be cured. But how do CEOs do that
in practice?
CEOs insist that, despite the changing nature of
their role, they remain the ultimate decision makers,
providing clarity and direction. This clarity is ever more
elusive in a world of intersecting trends, competing
demands, and unpredictable ripples. Worse, what appears
to be clear may in fact be a dangerous illusion, because
if youre that clear, youve probably missed something.
Keen to protect themselves against this false sense of
security and the risk of being blindsided, a [certain]
level of professional doubt should be the quality of any
good leader, says one CEO.

The CEO Report | 14

Chasing certainty is futile

While the majority of CEOs we spoke to embrace doubt
as a catalyst for positive action, others struggle to do so
openly, even under the guise of anonymity our research
provided. In fact, around 10 percent of our respondents
deny having any doubts, but go on to describe how they
reduce uncertainty and gain clarityin other words,
reduce doubt. For instance, one CEO firmly declared
himself out of the second-guessing game because it
will drive you crazy, but later advised that you have to
have people you can go to, a network, to say Look, Im
really struggling with this, can I get your opinion, your
advice? expressly adding that if you dont, youre not
doing your homework. The key question seems to be:
where is the line between constructive doubt and what
this CEO termed going crazy?
Most CEOs, unsurprisingly, see doubt in terms of
data-processing constraints and a lack of knowledge. In
our increasingly unknowable world, CEOs know that
seeking better information is necessary, but chasing
certainty is futile: You cant wait for a hundred percent
certainty because by then the world has changed the
question and its too late, observes one CEO. But you

T
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NOT KNOWING

KNOWING

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POWER
OF DOUBT

ZO

Doubt is a generative force

to be harnessed, rather than
a weakness to be cured.
Understanding the landscape
of doubt helps CEOs leverage
their discomfort for more timely
and informed decision making.

OF

M
YO

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IT HT
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Figure 7: The landscape of doubt

NE

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FEARLESSNESS

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ANXIETY

cant just make a guess. The key is getting comfortable

making decisions in the grey area in between or, in the
words of one CEO, to get comfortable with discomfort.

A [certain] level of
professional doubt should be the
quality of any good leader.

Comfort, however, is not just about knowing, but also

about feeling. Asked how they feel before making highstakes decisions under uncertainty, CEOs responded
with the full palette of emotions, from anxiety to
excitement. CEOs naturally articulated the knowing
aspect of doubt, while the feeling piece often lingered
subconsciously.

However, acknowledging doubt as both a feeling and

an information issue helps distinguish constructive doubt
from disruptive second-guessing. The more self-aware
CEOs we spoke with recognize two simultaneous and
equally disruptive risks: hubris and paralysis. One CEO
reflects that, the areas Im strong in are also potentially my
weaknesses, recognizing the temptation of overconfidence
and enabling himself to protect against it. Conversely,
another CEO confided that she tries to anticipate the pros
and cons of all of the options so I always feel slightly
anxious. It is in this sense that moderate anxiety can be
leveraged as a heightened sense of adrenaline, as another
CEO put it, like an athletes pre-game nerves. Beyond that,
however, it is likely to be disruptive.
Figure 8: Do you ever doubt yourself?

71%

10%

19%

Yes

No, but

No

15

Mapping the landscape of doubt

Our understanding hinges on two insights: first,
harnessing doubt allows CEOs to balance themselves
within the uncomfortable comfort zone in which they
feel able to act decisively, even in times of uncertainty.
Second, the type of doubt and the size of this comfort
zone are defined by dimensions of both knowing and
feelingall of which can be mapped on a stylized twoby-two matrix (Figure 7).
Once CEOs understand which quadrant they find
themselves in for any given decision, they can think
about tailoring strategies to turn doubt into a powerful
tool and thereby expand their comfort zones while
protecting against the various risks of decision making.

Its never black and white,

theres always shades of grey
around those decisions. So
theres an anxiety which in
a way almost gives you
a bit more clarity.

For example, where CEOs were anxious about

insufficient knowledge, doubt expressed itself for some
as an honest humility about what youre capable of
knowing, and an insatiable sense of curiosity. Moreover,
several CEOs reported leveraging their doubts for
continuous learning. For some leaders, this took the form
of data collection and analysis. Still others approached
it on a more personal level, for example by traveling,
seeking out diverse conversations, and gathering
information from a broad selection of sources.
As one CEO pointed out, the customized news
feeds we all enjoy can generate blinkers on the sides of
our heads and constrain our views. Therefore, he makes
a point of reading outside his typical areas of interest to
remove the blinkers and broaden his horizons.

The CEO Report | 16

Notes another: Ask good questions and you will

make better decisions. Not doing so risks putting
CEOs outside their uncomfortable comfort zones and
thus in danger of decision paralysis.

One of the most important

things is having people
around you that tell you
how wrong you are.

In circumstances where CEOs report feeling

residual anxiety despite good information, many turn
to peer mentoring or benchmarking for validation.
In the words of one CEO, seeking validation means
sharing your problem and being vulnerable with
people that otherwise you might be uncomfortable
doing that with. Chairpersons, boards, or external
consultants fall into this category. Other CEOs prefer
safer environments such as family, friends, or CEO
associations.
Validation is critical for tempering doubt and
channeling its productive power. Moreover, it mitigates
the risk of doubt spiraling into angst, wasteful
information searches, or unhealthy self-challenge.
Those more fearless leaders who feel well
informed tend to value the friction and the debate
that goes on around even the small stuff so they
dont get too comfortable and risk overconfidence. In
fact, such leaders often go out of their way to create
environments where honest and constructive debate
is not only welcome, but expected.
Among the CEOs we interviewed, the most
common sources of debate were the board and
board chair, although some CEOs have established
designated panels to serve as devils advocates.
Such organizations are well positioned to leverage
the diversity of thought that in turn can lead to better
and more thoughtful challenges to the status quo.

When constructive conflict is present, says one

CEO, [I] always have someone bringing me an angle,
a vision that I clearly didnt see. It is these angles that
strengthen the CEOs ripple intelligence. However,
constructive challenges in the C-suite can be few and
far between, and one CEO laments that one of the aha
[moments] about being CEO is, you stop hearing the
truth. Such leaders need to expressly invite dissent or
else risk seeking challenge but finding false validation,
and thus tragically reinforcing the very myopia they
seek to mitigate.

Its always been true and

technology hasnt changed
it numbers just illuminate
decisions; they dont make
them for you.

CEOs who are comfortable making decisions

with limited information often rely on experience or
gut instinct. However, they acknowledge that in new
situations where their gut may be wrong, its also
important to marry that gut feeling with the ability
to be humble enough to ask. Leaders in this category
rely on traditional risk-management approaches to
protect against the possible negative consequences
of their decisions. This helps give them a sense of
preparation while protecting against the hubris that
the CEO knows best. Because if you are not careful
and you think that you are indestructible, notes one
respondent, then thats where the dangers lurk.

Slowing down
Critically, though, processing doubt takes time.
Judiciously assessing the speed, scope, and significance
of change is paramount so that CEOs can identify the
decisions to delegate, determine the decisions to make,
and then dedicate sufficient time for productive doubt

on the latter. In other words, proper delegation frees

up time to pace the decisions CEOs have to make and
creates space for constructive doubt.
Once that is accomplished, though, these
strategies allow CEOs to outsource doubt. While for
the most part leaders will leverage their management
teams, they can also utilize their boards and even
families and friends to help suspend themselves in
a state of productive skepticism without the burden
of continuous self-questioning, simply by having
people around you that tell you how wrong you are, as
one CEO puts it.
One exception is CEOs self-questioning around
the maintenance of their personal authenticity in the
face of ever-present challenges to adapt. Importantly,
this is an issue CEOs do not associate with the question
of doubting yourself. These more profound personal
questions cannot be outsourced in the ways described
here, but must be personally balanced by the CEO

KEY INSIGHTS
Doubt is part of the humanization of the
CEO, a positive, generative state that should
be embraced and utilized, not feared.
Doubt is an issue of both knowing and
feeling. Ignoring the emotional dimension
artificially limits the range of solutions
available.
Transforming doubt into a decision tool
helps CEOs find comfort in the discomfort
of making decisions when the outcome is
uncertain.
CEOs can lighten the burden of selfchallenge by enlisting management
teams, boards, or chairpersons to
outsource doubt.
Understanding the reasons for their
discomfort allows CEOs to solicit
additional information or perspectives,
thereby making more comfortable and
productive decisions.

17

Authenticity and adaptability:

Bridging the master paradox

[You must have] a very strong sense of what your purpose is

and be absolutely authentic in everything that you do.

uthenticity has become a leadership

buzzword over the past decade, often used
but vaguely defined. In our research, we
included no questions on authenticity, yet
nearly half of our interviewees spoke directly about either
authenticity or its close relative, purpose. Specifically,
they mentioned personal benefits (ensuring that you
stay true to your own principles, [finding] a place where
youre true to yourself) and positive outcomes (creating
a more authentic conversation, having authenticity and
vulnerability as a way to connect more profoundly with
the team). Even those CEOs who didnt talk explicitly
about authenticity or purpose often used words that
reflect those concepts when discussing the leadership
qualities they consider essential: integrity, honesty,
personal values, self-awareness, and trustworthiness.
Why do CEOs consider authenticity so important?
Many talked about authenticity in terms of trust and
transparency. To some extent, pragmatic considerations
lead many CEOs to embrace authenticity as a response to
the heightened visibility and transparency requirements
they face. You cant have a hidden side and a real side,
observes one CEO, because that will get exhibited.

The CEO Report | 18

More broadly, though, since trust typically follows in the

wake of transparency, the CEOs viewed authenticity as
critical both outside and inside the organization: for the
former as a means of generating trust among a wider
group of stakeholders, not just shareholders, and for the
latter, as a cornerstone of productive collaboration that
requires CEOs to have a high level of trust from your
colleagues that you will do the right thing. In other words,
authenticity is the fuel that drives trust.

Not so easy
Yet being an authentic leader is hard. Trust and
transparency are viewed by stakeholders as commitments
to stability. As one CEO says, trust is created by a
promise, and [maintained by] meeting that promise over
and over again. This, of course, makes it difficult for
CEOs to adapt to new challenges, as the new behaviors
leaders employ to meet them risk being perceived by
stakeholders as contradictory. Such perceptions risk
destabilizing a CEOs authenticity, and thus squandering
the trust he or she has built up. With an ever-widening
collection of stakeholders with competing demands
requiring contradictory behaviors, CEOs will increasingly

Figure 9: Purpose is at
the core of authenticity

PRESSURE TO ADAPT

RESILIENCE

Capacity to adapt
authentically is a function
of purpose and resilience.

RESILIENCE

PURPOSE

AUTHENTICITY

PRESSURE TO ADAPT

face some version of this authenticityadaptability

paradox, if they arent already.

I dont manage my time,

I manage my energy.
What differentiates CEOs who feel successfully
authentic from those who have difficulty remaining true
to themselves? An overriding sense of purpose. One CEO
said, if you suddenly start losing focus on what your
sense of purpose was at the outset and start becoming
everything to everyone, it [usually is] the beginning of
the end. This view leads us to a more precise definition
of authenticity: being true to personal purpose.
Another problem arises, then, when the need to
adapt conflicts with a CEOs own sense of purpose.
This is most likely when CEOs, in an effort to keep pace
with change, indiscriminately adapt themselves to new
demands. The effect can be analogous to cutting the
anchor line of a boat, thus putting executives at risk of

losing sight of their fundamental values and goals.

Human resource issues represent a common
example of the authenticityadaptability challenge,
and in fact more than two-thirds of our interviewees
cited people decisions as the toughest decisions they
face. Again and again we heard stories such as this one,
where a CEO needed to fire an executive who was both
high-performing and a friend, because the executive
had violated the companys ethics code: I felt strongly
supportive of [the executive], said the interviewee,
but not to take any action would have confirmed
everybodys view, internally and externally, that we were
without moral fiber.
Figure 10: What are the toughest decisions CEOs make?

64%

cited people decisions

as the toughest

19

Personnel decisions such as these challenge a CEOs

decision making abilities, as increasing organizational
and societal demands for leaders steeped in EQ,
collaboration, and teamwork butt up against traditional
organizational and shareholder demands for results.
The outcome is a sense of dissonance and discontent for
leaders: As much as you can intellectualize it and you
know its the right thing for the company, said one CEO,
every single one of those people has a personal story and
a personal journey, and you have intervened in their life
you have impacted them and their families if youre
being authentic, that is a hard thing to do.

If you have a sense of purpose

that is true and genuine and
exciting and authentic, the
unknown is not an issue.

Another CEO described the difficult conversation he

had with an employee who had just been laid off. Although
the CEO expected a furious reaction, he was surprised
instead to find grudging acceptance. [The employee]
said, [Although] Im personally devastated, the CEO
recalled, we all respect you for taking a decision which
really needed taking, and perhaps if it was taken a couple
of years ago we wouldnt be in this mess. The lesson the
CEO drew from this gets to the heart of the authenticity
adaptability challenge: Almost by definition you only get
the decision that either nobody else will [make] or nobody
else can make. And the scariest thing, for someone
working in a business is seeing with clarity that change
needs to happen and seeing that their leaders are either
unwilling or unable to make those decisions. Thats a very
scary ship to be on.

Make purpose the touchstone

How can CEOs come to grips with dilemmas such as
these? Put simply: CEOs feel most comfortable when
their personal sense of purpose is aligned with that of the

The CEO Report | 20

organization. Notes one CEO, I think youve got to be

really clear what your personal goals are and make sure
[your] personal motivations are aligned and compatible
with the organization and where its going.
CEOs invoked different arguments to justify their
people decisions in ways that enabled them to bounce
back, but all drew ultimately on the alignment between
personal and organizational purpose. By prioritizing
their roles as responsible stewards of the business, they
found alignment between the organizational needs
around performance and their own personal purpose.
Most CEOs did not explicitly distinguish between the
pressures they felt to be human with those of being
responsible stewards, but one who did observes, in
the context of people decisions: There are two
kinds of letting go of people nonperformers, I have
no problem with doing that, thats an easy decision
[but if] you have to cut costs motivating the troops,
while at the same time trimming costs by letting
[people] go, is a very, very hard thing to do you
end up coming across as a bit of a hypocrite. In the
first case, the CEOs personal purpose is aligned with
organizational purpose, so decision making is easy,
whereas in the second instance, his human, authentic
purpose is at odds with the organizational pressures
for performance. However, even in this more difficult
dilemma, his awareness of the conflict allows him to
prioritize organizational needs for efficiency.

Its been done, lets move

on I dont look back;
I dont look back.

As these anecdotes suggest, when personal

and organizational purpose are aligned it can guide
organizational relationships and drive decision
making, even when the decisions raise uncomfortable
contradictions. Defining and aligning purpose, therefore,
becomes the touchstone for reducing doubt around
tough decisions.

Be resilient
Accordingly, an overarching sense of purpose is a source of
internal resilience, another critical skill for being adaptable
yet authentic. Resilience (or as one CEO put it, the ability
to pick oneself back up off the floor when a crisis occurs)
provides leaders with the necessary self-awareness,
energy, and confidence to align action with purpose while
maintaining authenticity. Its not very glamorous, admits
one CEO, but [its] surprisingly important, not being
knocked off course if things dont work.

[I] try to be as authentic

as I can, and standing in
your own magic, if youre
authentic, just a whole lot
of stuff gets easy.
To help CEOs think through, and manage,
the competing demands of authenticity and
adaptability, we developed Figure 9, based on
our interviews. The figure shows how purpose,
authenticity, adaptability, and resilience interact.
Authenticity is depicted as a rubber ball, suspended
between two piston-like bars, aligned according to a
common purpose. As the bars exert pressure to adapt,
the ball contracts, but, being resilient, it also springs
back. Excessive pressure, however, can push personal
authenticity to the breaking point.
How can leaders strengthen authenticity and
resilience? Our interviews suggest that leaders start by
focusing on increasing self-awareness and emotional
intelligence. Several CEOs told us they wished they had
done so before assuming the role. Self-awareness enables
CEOs to manage their energy more effectivelyanother
important skill: It turns out, if I get up from the room
and I go outside for a walk, says one CEO, peace comes
over me. Moreover, experiencing congruence between
personal and organizational purpose is energizing. I
can bounce out of bed in the morning because thats an
easy organization for me to come to, notes one CEO.

Nurturing personal resilience is a skill CEOs must

develop over time, and those CEOs we spoke to used
words such as energy, courage, and strength to describe
their coping mechanisms for the physical, emotional,
and intellectual demands of the job. The extent and
frequency of unexpected developments requires
CEOs to be always on, so staying fit (mentally and
physically) is important. Several CEOs also pointed to
spirituality and mindfulness as important sources of
energy and strength.
While no single right approach emerged from
our interviews, we confirmed that once CEOs verify
that decisions are aligned with personal values, there
is less regret. In essence, CEOs like to ensure that their
decisions are supported by both the factual information
they gather and the personal values they hold. Ultimately,
the authenticityadaptability balancing act is the master
paradox, and only by first being sure of their personal
purpose and authenticity can they hope to later steer
their way through the many other paradoxes the role
introduces as they cope with individual decisions

KEY INSIGHTS
Authenticity is top of mind and adaptability
top of agenda. Holding a productive tension
between the two is key.
The capacity to adapt authentically is critical
for maintaining trust and buy-in when responding
to competing demands and volatility.
Authenticity is a function of purpose and
resilience, which protect against indiscriminate
adaptation and anchor the CEO.
A well-defined and aligned purpose is
the touchstone for reducing doubt around
tough decisions and winning support for
their execution.
Long-term resilience is fueled by defining
experiences, especially of adversity. Day-to-day,
it is maintained through mindfulness,
self-awareness, exercise, family support,
or coaching.

21

Finding balance:
Choosing between
right and right
Sometimes you have to have the courage to say, I know this is the
right direction, the humility to say when youve got it wrong and deal
with it, but the courage to take action when you believe its the right
thing to dodespite the downside potential for yourself.

hile being both authentic and

adaptable is the most important
balancing act that CEOs face, it is
far from the only one. The challenge
of finding balance is clearly high on CEOs agendas.
Almost two-thirds of respondents spontaneously raised
the issue of balance without prompting. However, what
needs to be balanced is as diverse as the need for balance
is unifying: the CEOs we talked to continuously seek to
balance seemingly irreconcilable demands such as the
quarterly rat race and long-term goals, profit and social
responsibility, decisiveness and humility, work and life.
This complicated balancing act is an important
characteristic of the CEOs role. As more stakeholders
make competingyet equally validdemands, CEOs face
perplexing choices between right and right, as one put it,
rather than simply right and wrong. It is these dilemmas
that make decisions so vexing and alignment so difficult.
How can CEOs give their various internal and external
stakeholders confidence that they are choosing the right
right, and get support for their decisions? This challenge
is intensified as many paradoxes do not queue up
neatly to be dealt with one at a time. They all trouble CEOs

The CEO Report | 22

simultaneously. It is easy to do any one of those things,

says one interviewee. The challenge is to exist at the
intersection of all of those things. Visually, then, CEOs are
not simply balancing a single scale, but rather a wheel of
intersecting leadership paradoxes, one for every decision
they makea collective balancing act that resembles an
acrobat spinning plates. This is not a challenge CEOs can
shy away from. Many expressed that the continuous quest
for balance must be an aspiration, if not an imperative
a matter of moving beyond the choices of either or,
and unlocking the power of both and.

Figure 11: Finding balance

67%

of global CEOs
raise the challenge
of finding balance
as a salient concern

ORGANIZATIONAL
PURPOSE

Figure 12: Finding balance, not

necessarily at the mid-point.
Balancing personal paradoxes
does not necessarily mean finding
the mid-point between competing
demands, but gives CEOs the
foundation to turn organizational
trade-offs into winwin situations.

DECISION

DECISION

DECISION
OPTIMISM

HASTE

HUBRIS
ADAPTABILITY

PERSONAL
PURPOSE

AUTHENTICITY

PESSIMISM
HUMILITY

The best of both

Notably, some of our interviewees appeared eager to
embrace these paradoxes of leadership, most often
by adopting a mind-set that seeks to move beyond
zero-sum games and frame competing demands as
winwin situations. Critically, getting the best of both
worlds does not necessarily require an equal balance
between competing demands. The various spokes of
the paradox wheels need not intersect in a central hub.
But wherever they do intersect, they create a sweet
spot that defines organizational purpose as the sum
of all choices and trade-offs (Figure 12).
Problems do not arise from emphasizing one
demand over another, but from overemphasizing one
to the extent that a threshold is crossed and the
other demand is marginalized. Therefore, as one CEO
warns, if life feels simple, comfortable, and devoid of
any hard choices, it should serve as a warning, because
if everything was black and white, you dont need
a CEO. Certainly, CEOs most clearly articulate the
challenge of balancing the organizationto take a view
and make sense of all the fuzziness and decide that this
is the direction we are going. They focus on the content,

HESITATION

So many choices are to be

made and the ability to make
those choices, balancing the
stakeholders, balancing the
long term and the short term,
balancing priorities [is critical].

the what and why, of their decisions, establishing

a clear purpose that signals to all stakeholders what the
organization stands for, who it serves, by what means,
and in what time frame, building trust that it is not
easily thrown off balance.

Make it personal
Intuitively, we know that the more out of balance
the acrobat, the harder it is to spin multiple plates.
That is why balancing personal paradoxes is critical
for balancing organizational ones. While the former

23

stabilize the how of decision making, the latter

stabilize the what, building conviction, alignment,
and trust. Connecting personal and organizational
paradoxes is critical. CEOs need to feel they fit into
the world they lead in. While balancing between
extremes is key, some CEOs expressed great difficulty
with leaders who are definite. Even in the personal
balancing act between IQ and EQ, one CEO noted:
Were not talking two mutually exclusive dynamics
here, but rather dynamics of degree. In fact, the CEOs
we spoke with offered many paradoxical yins and
yangs they must attempt to embody, for example:
being anxious yet fearless, authentic yet adaptable,
open yet self-sufficient, and quick yet hesitant,
among others.

Its a little bit like

a prisoners dilemma. If we
both move we will both be
better off. So the toughness
of this is how do you get
everybody to see it and
actually move.

We highlight these personal paradoxes because

the CEOs we met were quite vocal about their concern
of misalignment between their organizational and
personal purposes, a state that drains their energy
and challenges their authenticity. Yet few were
explicitly aware of how they might strengthen this
alignment. Connecting the dispersed insights from
a range of CEOs suggests that the answer lies in a
combination of four areas: doubt, conviction, realism,
and patience. Interestingly, the CEOs who themselves
noted the importance of these characteristics implied
they were choices, even actions, not innate qualities
they possessed.

The CEO Report | 24

Four balancing points

Weve talked a lot about doubt as a tool. It creates a
constructive balance between anxiety and fearlessness,
omniscience and ignorance. As one CEO noted, And
of course this is a paradox because you need to have
the confidence to believe in the things that you are
leading forward, and on the other hand you have to
challenge yourself all the time. Especially where the
tension of a big decision is actually quite positive, it
makes you really get on your game and focus, but also
leads CEOs to involve others and outsource doubt.
Leveraging doubt to provide awareness, validation,
challenge, or preparation provides CEOs with greater
personal conviction in their decisions, while providing
stakeholders with reassurance about the process.
Conviction, in turn, balances openness and selfsufficiency, hubris and humility. The latter pair is a
challenge, as CEOs require, as one puts it, an almost
insane combination of extreme confidence, bordering
on arrogance, combined with complete humility.
While many CEOs acknowledge that neither extreme
is productive, using them to temper each other and
produce personal conviction helps them exhibit
confidence to bring constituencies with you, to
motivate people.

Because all the decisions fall

on the CEO, you have to have
a clear vision and purpose and
philosophy about where you are
going. And you try to connect
that to the organization.

To bring along those constituencies, one

interviewee observed that CEOs have to inject
possibility into their organizations. Critically,
though, in another CEOs view, injecting a belief in

the possible is different from blind optimismthats

not optimism, thats just gambling. Instead, they
call for realistic optimism, subconsciously locating
realism as a constructive midpoint between optimism
and pessimism, and a realistic understanding of the
situation that others can more easily share and follow.

Stay with the problem as long

as you can, but then make the
decision as quickly as you can,
sort of another paradox.

Lastly, CEOs tell us that the right pacing or timing

of decisions is critical, and both haste and hesitation
are equally damaging. With the clock ticking, CEOs
worry that they lack time to consider all angles or to
let the organization catch up with their thinking, so
implementation becomes problematic. With too much
time, procrastination and distraction loom. Patience,
as a constructive midpoint, is a safeguard for CEOs
to reassure themselves, Ive thought it through, and Im
not just knee-jerking my way into it. To buy the time for
patience, CEOs need to anticipate how developments
interact to affect them, identify the truly urgent, and focus
on those foundational and systemic issues that most
warrant their attention.
Taken together, doubt, conviction, realism, and
patience give not only CEOsbut also employees and
other stakeholdersconfidence that whatever balance is
struck on various organizational paradoxes, it has emerged
from a challenging, open, well-paced decision process.
Indeed, confidence in the personal balance of the CEO
and the decision process employed builds confidence in
the decision taken, which is, as one CEO puts it, a little bit
like having the captain on the bridge of the ship in heavy
weather. If he doesnt look unnerved then everybody draws
their confidence from that position. Simply put, the more
balanced the how, the easier the what is to communicate.

Yet, we must not overlook the fact that the critical

link between personal and organizational paradoxes
the what and the how is the why, which is
purpose. The more aligned the CEOs personal purpose
and the purpose of the organization, the more credibly
he or she can communicate the reasons behind the
decisions, signaling that it reflects a conviction the
CEO personally stands for. In doing so, CEOs report,
they reap double rewards: they help align the
organization behind their decision and at the same
time reassert their personal purpose, protecting their
authenticity and re-energizing them for the leadership
tasks ahead.
This sense of balance and alignment, even within
their personal paradoxes, is not something CEOs
typically bring to the role. It is built through their
formative experiences, honed over time, and sometimes
articulated to be passed on to their successors. Yet
many CEOs we interviewed are not acutely aware of
how far they have evolved in their role

KEY INSIGHTS
CEOs must constantly balance
between personal and organizational
paradoxes. Today this is a given
of the role. How CEOs balance their
personal paradoxes in the decisionmaking process greatly influences
the organizations confidence in
their decisions.
Losing sight of competing stakeholder
demands imbalances the organization
and increases reputational risk. CEOs
must look beyond the choices of either
or, and toward unlocking the potential
for bothand.
Pace and timing of decisions are critical.
Haste and hesitation can be equally
detrimental. Understanding when to speed
up or slow down is often the difference
between good and bad decisions.

25

Todays CEO:
Embracing continual
growth and renewal
Youve gone go-karting and then
suddenly youre given an F1 car.

e asked CEOs how they developed

the necessary skills for the job, what
expectations they had coming into
the role, and how, in retrospect, all of
this compares to the reality they live today. Many talked
about their careers as a series of independent building
blocks, and a pattern emerged about skills acquisition
as a series of intense periods of growth. Borrowing
from the world of product life-cycles and innovation, we
began to view CEOs careers as a series of interlocking,
developmental S-curves. In light of our research, we
adapted this curve to incorporate numerous, smaller
S-curves making up each career stage, which reflect how
CEOs experience personal development, both preparing
for and living the role (Figure 14).

responsibility. Still others acknowledged no youthful

aspirations for leadership at all, saying it was only after
entering business that such affinities emerged.

Figure 13: Paths to the corner office

50%

39%

8%

internal
promotions

external
placements

founder
CEOs

Journey to the top

Many CEOs discovered their taste and aptitude for
leadership during their school years. When asked about
particular defining moments, some pinpointed early
formative experiences, such as taking on senior student
roles or running a business. For others, adversity
or traumatic events forged their ability to handle

The CEO Report | 26

For most CEOs, early working years were critical

influences. They told of significant learning as they
took on more responsibility, and they emphasized
the importance of broadening experiences: general
management experience early on is probably the
single most useful thing you can do because its not until

Figure 14: Getting appointed is only the beginning

A CEOs career consists of interlocking periods of
personal growth, each building on past accomplishments
and leading to new opportunities for continued renewal.

REFLECTION & MINDFULNESS

CEO CAPABILITIES
RIPPLE INTELLIGENCE
POWER OF DOUBT
AUTHENTICITY
BALANCING PARADOXES

COMPETENCE

FORMATION

IN ROLE
TIME

youve got P&L responsibility [and a] team that you

really get the sense of the breadth of the CEO role.
In mid-career, the future CEOs typically accepted
increasingly challenging roles, and many started to
have a clearer aspiration to be CEO. They spoke of
progress through adversity, gaining confidence by
handling crises, working with difficult customers,
managing multiple or cross-border P&Ls, rebuilding
management teams, and adapting to the demands that
increasing work responsibilities placed on the rest
of their lives. Some noted that their failures were far
more instructive than their successes. Interestingly,
the events or crises that allowed CEOs to learn were
seen as mostly serendipitous. There was a strong
element of luck, chance, happenstance, and being in
the right place at the right time in the development of
these leaders.
Each of these experiences can be seen as a
formative S-curve, which together comprise the CEOs
preparation for the role at the top. How CEOs are
prepared and selected for the top job has been widely
described elsewhere. Our aim instead is to focus on other
important developmental phases, notably how CEOs

You may be second in

line, third in line, fourth in
line, youre very close to the
CEO, but you are still not
prepared for the job.
transition into the role and continue their development
of particular importance given the demands leaders face
today from expanding stakeholder communities and
increasing volatility. In fact, many CEOs believe that
tomorrows leaders will need to be as adept at the sorts
of softer skills as they are with the traditional, harder
ones that the CEOs also cited (general management
experience, for example, as well as developing a mix
of skills in finance, marketing, communications, and
people management).

Observations from the corner office

Beyond the usual conversations about the first hundred

27

days, the CEOs we spoke with said they had to deal

with substantial, often unexpected challenges early
in their tenures. Demands on their time and the need
to manage their energy came up frequently, as did
the need to communicate with multiple stakeholders,
including customers and the press. However prepared
they felt for the role, many admitted that the velocity
and complexity of the challenges they encountered
were greater than expected.
Because the role is structurally unique, prior
preparation can never be complete. As one CEO
said, You dont have peers in the company; in fact
youve got to be slightly distant, often from people
who were your peersyouve got to establish space.
Some noted that only the CEO can make certain
decisions, and they cannot consult in the same way
as they did in other roles. Others described the job
as lonely, even if, as one said, you have your team
and you have the chairman to share problems with,
because the CEO has ultimate responsibility for the
companys conduct.

I think most CEOs arent

necessarily as carefully crafted
when they arrive in the role as
they might like to make out.
I think there is probably more
learning on the job that goes
on than people get.

For several, working with the board was a novel

experience. Even where they had previous boardroom
experience, understanding the particular relationship
between the CEO and the board was only properly
developed once they assumed the job. As one CEO
observed, reporting to the board was not the same as
reporting to a boss.

The CEO Report | 28

The demands of communication, some recalled,

left the new CEOs constantly thinking about what
to broadcast and how to communicate with different
audiences. One described the role as communicator
in chief and continued: You dont really get the
preparation for being the external face of the business
that you become [particularly given] the explosion of
electronic media Youre now just much more visible.
While few CEOs were surprised about the need
to communicate with investors, the need to deal with a
broader range of external stakeholders was not always
anticipated, and some spoke of having to learn to
communicate effectively. For instance, one said he had
to forget the Harvard education I have intentionally
tried to simplify my language and just be normal.

You need to have an

enormous mind-set of openness
and learning because however
[much a] genius you [think you]
are, you are still not a genius;
there are other people in the
system who know better than
you many times.

CEOs also highlighted the need to listen to other

voices. One of the biggest lessons to me, noted one
interviewee, is the deliberate effort to listen to the
organization; its really easy to pretend to listen. Others
spoke of the skill of asking the right questions and of
one-to-one communications, being both informational
and motivational. Many spoke of encouraging debate
and the importance of signaling that they were not
infallible. One described realizing that he was the same
person the day after he took the role, yet everyones
expectations had changed. The danger, he notes, is
some CEOs take that on themselves, and they feel
they have to have every answer.

Some CEOs had extensive preparation for the job,

others had less, and some had none. I didnt even know
what a CEO did, one admitted. I came straight from
the [hospital] to being a CEO and I just wish Id had
some business experience.

What struck me was

how much more in the public
eye CEOs are now courtesy of
the media you dont really
quite ever get the preparation
for the external face of the
business that you become.

Moving up the curves

Consistent across most of our interviews was the
observation that CEOs are, above all, students of the
role, and thus constantly learning. They continue to
learn and grow, progressing through a series of inrole S-curves that correspond to their response to new
challenges. Theres no way you know everything,
said one senior executive. You always have to
continue to learn, and theres always somebody thats
faced the problem or challenge that youre about to
face you can learn from those folks. Were all lonely
at the top together.
Likewise, many other CEOs spoke of curiosity,
and the need to hone its practice until it becomes a
discipline. Asserts one CEO: You need to have an
enormous mind-set of openness and learning because
however [much a] genius you [think you] are, you are
still not a genius. Another said: Youve always got to
believe youve still got a lot to learn and you can learn
from everybody.
CEOs outlined various methods they use to
sustain curiosityreading widely, talking to a wide
range of interest groups, exploring areas that, as one

CEO put it, are things that Im not actually interested

in. Others speak of updating their core professional
knowledge base and letting go of doing things I was
good at and enjoyed, and do[ing] things that I wasnt
as good or competent at, but the company really
needed me to do.
Ultimately, such a mind-set can help propel
leaders up the various cycles of growth they will
encounter along the way in their roles, even as
these roles continue to evolve in unexpected ways.
Whether its mastering new capabilities, developing
new forms of competitive intelligence, exploiting
the power of doubt, or learning to choose the right
right, tomorrows CEOs (or at least its most successful
practitioners) will embody this spirit of growth,
learning, and renewal. Those who do are likely to
recognize, as many of the CEOs we spoke to did, that
the role is not the end of a long career but instead
another beginning

KEY INSIGHTS
The CEO role is structurally unique, and
preparation therefore always incomplete.
Often, the specific demands of sudden
visibility and scrutiny, broad and
deep communication, board relationships,
and personal exposure take CEOs
by surprise.
The CEO career consists of interlocking
periods of personal growth, each
building on past accomplishments
and leading to new opportunities for
continued renewal.
It is often in moments of crisis that
CEOs successfully reinvent themselves
and trigger a new growth cycle.
To grow intoand withthe role, CEOs
need to create environments that feed
their curiosity, challenge their orthodoxies,
and fuel their continual learningand
unlearning.

29

Whats next:
Ensuring success
beyond succession
Start with integrity. It is the alignment
between your principles [and] what you do and
it [requires] courage. Courage is paramount.

ne goal of this report was to synthesize

the experiences of the more than 150
CEOs as they face the challenge of delivering
sustained performance in turbulent times.
Another was to offer recommendations and insights
regarding the approaches that CEOs can take to succeed.
A third was to facilitate a shift from mostly implicit
development of these top leaders at presentwhere
success depends largely on individual virtues and
even luck and circumstanceto a place where formal
development builds and strengthens critical capabilities.
That, in turn, would encourage stronger pipelines
of potential CEOs, along with spillover benefits of a
strengthened C-suite. Along those lines, many of the
CEOs we spoke to had advice for the next generation.
The majority of CEOs we interviewed acknowledge
that talent development and succession planning are
critical requirements of their roles. Several spoke of actively
helping develop their future replacements, in particular by
giving up-and-coming leaders opportunities to develop
skills such as emotional intelligence, influence, and
compassion. Indeed, the general conclusion is that, given
the ongoing complexity and changing nature of the role,

The CEO Report | 30

general training in a more classic vein (for instance, growing

up in a series of roles with increasing responsibility) is only
a small part of the preparation required. The characteristics
of the job, one CEO observes, requires candidates who are
less rigid and more flexible. A CEO must have the ability
to very quickly [have a] change of lensto have lenses that
can zoom in and out quickly, and with this put themselves
in the right place with the right attitude.
The need for inter-contextual thinking, or ripple
intelligence, was a theme throughout our interviews when
talking about the next generation of leaders. Threedimensional thinkers will hold a distinct advantage.
Moreover, the ability to acceptand drivechange
will be important, as will developing a heightened
comfort level with ambiguity and uncertainty. As one
CEO puts it: Leaders should believe that change is the
oxygen of growth and creativity. Another commented,
If youre afraid of change, youre missing the opportunity
to grow youre missing the opportunity to create far more
innovation and creativity in your organization. Leaders of
tomorrow should recognize that change is an opportunity
and should have the courage and desire to work with their
teams to bring [it] about.

Finally, our interviewees felt the ability to be human

and authentic were critical qualities their successors
needed to develop. There is one aspect which seems
decisive to me, noted one CEO. It has to be someone
who can generate trust.

Take a bit of risk; it doesnt

matter if the first one doesnt work
or even the second one doesnt
work, the third one probably will
because youll get sharper and
smarter each time you go.

The CEOs we interviewed lead some of the largest

companies around the world. Collectively, their conduct
and performance affect everyone: employees, investors,
consumersall citizens of an increasingly interconnected
world. Future leaders therefore need to embrace the
challengebut especially the responsibilityof leadership
to do justice to a multitude of accountabilities and societal
expectations. In the words of one CEO: Put the interest
of others ahead of your own, within your business model.
Its as simple as that. Put yourself to the service of
society.

Leaders should believe

that change is the oxygen of
growth and creativity.

Be the leader
Can these skills be developed on the job? Or are they
prerequisites? Interestingly, there was little consensus
here: our CEO interviewees held very strong opinions
in both directions (surprising, perhaps, given that many
of the important skills the CEOs cited were ones they
themselves had learned on the job). The fact is, though,
rigorous preparation for the job and further development
on the job are both essential.
When asked what would make the necessary
transformation smoother for their successors, CEOs
focused on many of the themes found in this report:
achieve comfort with change, harness the power of doubt,
be curious, collaborate, be adaptable, have purpose, and
seek balance. In particular, they advised aspirants of all
stripes to learn to feel comfortable collaborating and
drawing opinions from a diverse array of individuals. As
one CEO suggests, Get separate independent soundings
from the organization create a sense of teamwork
communicating to people that their ideas are important
and they can be honest. Furthermore, they advised future
leaders to take thoughtful risks and be willing to fail:
Take a bit of risk; it doesnt matter if the first one doesnt
work or even the second one doesnt work, the third one
probably will because youll get sharper and smarter each
time you go. Such a mind-set of continuous personal
improvement is a vital quality for tomorrows leaders.

KEY INSIGHTS
Potential CEOs must have strong core
experience (general management, finance,
and people management, among others),
but increasingly, softer skills are imperative.
Future CEOs will need to be flexible, systemic
thinkers, and comfortable with uncertainty,
complexity, and constant change.
CEOs communication skills need to be much
more sophisticated to effectively address
diverse and divergent stakeholders: more
audiences, more languages, more modes.
Maintaining the trust of multiple
stakeholders requires CEOs to display
strong personal purpose and authenticity.
Qualities including self-awareness, humility,
purpose, and authenticity are all critical
requirements for next-generation CEOs who
should aspire to collaborative command.
For tomorrows CEOs, continuous learning
will not be an option, but a must.

31

The CEO agenda: Global trends and accountabilities

GLOBAL RESULTS
To what extent do you see
the Top 10 global trends from
the World Economic Forums
Outlook on the Global
Agenda 2014 challenging
your business in the next
three to five years?
0 = not at all; 5 = significantly

REGIONAL RESULTS
Sub-Saharan
APAC
Africa

#1

Unemployment
(3.00)

#1

Growing Asian
middle class

Growing Asian middle class

Cyber threats
Lost confidence in economic policy
Lack of values
Megacities
Unemployment
Online misinformation
Income disparities
Climate change
Societal tensions in the
Middle East and North Africa

Europe

LATAM

MENA

North America

#1

#1

#1

#1

(3.33)

(3.80)

Cyber threats

Lack of values

(3.97)
#2 Income
disparities (2.80)
#3 Growing Asian
middle class (2.75)

#2 Cyber threats
(3.41)
#3 Lost confidence
in economic policy
(3.31)

3.32
3.28
3.23
3.08
3.07
2.86
2.75
2.64
2.36
2.24

Societal tensions Cyber threats

in Middle East & (3.76)
North Africa
(3.53)

#2 Lost confidence
in economic policy
(3.31)
#3 Growing Asian
middle class (3.24)

#2 Online
misinformation
(3.30)
#3 Lost confidence
in economic policy
(3.00)

#2 Lost confidence
in economic policy
(3.36)
#3 Lack of values
(3.27)

#2 Growing Asian
middle class (3.39)
#3 Lost confidence
in economic policy
(3.09)

SECTORAL RESULTS
Consumer

Finance

Industrial

Life

Services

Technology

#1

#1

#1

#1

#1

#1

(3.08)

(3.93)

Unemployment

#2 Megacities (2.97)/
Lost confidence in
economic policy
(2.97)
#3 Growing Asian
middle class (2.89)

The CEO Report | 32

Cyber threats

#2 Lost confidence
in economic policy
(3.52)
#3 Growing Asian
middle class (3.44)

Lost confidence
in economic
policy (3.19)
#2 Megacities
(3.13)
#3 Growing Asian
middle class (3.06)

Growing Asian
middle class
(3.83)

Lack of values/
Growing Asian
middle class

#2 Lost confidence
in economic policy
(3.50)
#3 Cyber threats
(3.00)

#2 Cyber threats
(3.75)
#3 Lost confidence
in economic policy
(3.50)

Cyber threats
(4.07)

(3.81)

#2 Growing Asian
middle class (3.71)
#3 Megacities
(3.36)

GLOBAL RESULTS
Rate your level
of accountability to
different stakeholders.

0 = not at all; 5 = significantly

REGIONAL RESULTS
Sub-Saharan
APAC
Africa

#1

Employees
(4.80)

#2 Customers
(4.60) / Owners/
shareholders (4.60)
#3 Financial
Community (4.20)

#1

Owners/
shareholders

Owners/shareholders
Customers
Employees
Managers
Financial community
Government
Suppliers
Competitors
Activists
Unions
Trade associations
Political groups

4.67
4.53
4.31
3.89
3.65
3.64
3.08
2.66
2.23
2.18
2.12
1.83

Europe

LATAM

MENA

North America

#1

#1

#1

#1

Owners/
shareholders

Owners/
shareholders
(4.90)

Owners/
shareholders

Customers
(4.67)

(4.82)

(4.69)

(4.67)

#2 Customers
(4.79)
#3 Employees
(4.43)

#2 Customers
(4.43)
#3 Employees
(4.36)

#2 Customers/
(4.20) Employees
(4.20)
#3 Managers (3.80)

#2 Customers
(4.20)
#3 Financial
community (4.00)/
Employees (4.00)

#2 Owners/
shareholders (4.45)
#3 Employees
(4.25)

SECTORAL RESULTS
Consumer

Finance

Industrial

Life

Services

Technology

#1

#1

#1

#1

#1

#1

(4.73)

(4.81)

Owners/
shareholders
(4.77)

#2 Customers
(4.44)
#3 Employees
(4.23)

Owners/
shareholders
(4.69)

#2 Employees
(4.46)
#3 Customers (4.35)

Customers

#2 Owners/
shareholders (4.67)
#3 Employees
(4.36)

Customers

#2 Owners/
shareholders (4.40)
#3 Financial
community (3.60)/
Government (3.60)/
Employees (3.60)

Owners/
shareholders
(4.75)

#2 Customers
(4.63)
#3 Employees
(4.60)

Customers
(4.43)

#2 Owners/
shareholders (4.36)
#3 Employees
(4.07)

33

Acknowledgments
We would like to express our gratitude to the more
than 150 CEOs we interviewed and thank them for
taking the time to share their deep and personal
insights. We would also like to thank their personal
and support staff who did a magnificent job of creating
time in their very busy schedules. Thank you!
Sad Business School
Professor Tim Morris, Dr. Andrew White, Dr. Michael
Smets, Dr. Amanda Moss Cowan, Dr. Andromachi
Athanasopoulou, Dr. Ted Malloch, Lyn Martin, Emily
Owen, Dr. Bryn Harris, and Alison McQuater
Heidrick and Struggles
Valerie Germain, Dr. Karen West, Dave Tullett, Patience
Berry, Tom Fleming, and a global team of H&S search,
leadership, and culture-shaping consultants who
interviewed alongside our core research team

Contacts
For further information on The CEO Report, please contact:
Sad Business School
Dr. Andrew White, Associate Dean for Executive Education
[email protected]
Sad Business School
Executive Education Centre, Egrove Park
Oxford OX1 5NY
UK
Heidrick & Struggles
Valerie Germain, Managing Partner
[email protected]
Heidrick & Struggles
1114 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10036
USA

To download a copy of the CEO Report visit:

www.heidrick.com/theceoreport
www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/ideas-impact/ceo-report

The CEO Report | 34

Method
The CEO Report is based on rich, individual
conversations with more than 150 CEOs representing
a wide range of sectors around the world, making it
one of the most comprehensive in-depth studies of
how global CEOs lead. Collectively, these CEOs have
more than 880 years of experience.
Assured of their anonymity, the CEOs reflected
openly on their leadership challenges and experiences.
Open-ended questions allowed them to elaborate
freely and gave us a glimpse of todays business
world through the eyes of its most senior leaders.
We therefore let CEOs speak for themselves as
we presented our analysis in this report.
Each interview lasted an average of 55 minutes
and, with few exceptions, was conducted face-to-face.
All interviews were anonymized prior to analysis by
researchers at Sad Business School, University of
Oxford.

About our
Sample
An average tenure of 6.5 years. A combined total
of 5.8 m employees, with an average of just over
46,000. A combined total of $1,658 bn in revenues,
with an average of over $14,419 m.
We interviewed more than 150 CEOs from around
the globe: Africa 3%, APAC 22%, LATAM 7%, Europe
30%, MENA 11%, N. AM 27%.
We covered a broad range of industries and
sectors: Consumer 30%, Finance 19%, Industrial
25%, Life Science 4%, Professional services 12%,
Technology 10%.
Women CEOs made up 8% of the sample. In addition
to drawing participants from the key global indices
such as Forbes, Fortune and S&P, we also drew on a
selection of private, family-run, and local companies.

Sad Business School at the University of Oxford

blends the best of new and old. We are a vibrant
and innovative business school, yet deeply embedded
in an 800-year-old world-class university. We create
programmes and ideas that have global impact.
We educate people for successful business careers,
and as a community seek to tackle world-scale
problems. We deliver cutting-edge programmes and
groundbreaking research that transform individuals,
organisations, business practice, and society. We
seek to be a world-class business school community,
embedded in a world-class University, tackling
world-scale problems. For more information, please
visit www.sbs.ox.ac.uk.
Heidrick & Struggles serves the executive talent
and leadership needs of the worlds top organizations
as the premier provider of leadership consulting,
culture shaping, and senior-level executive search
services. Heidrick & Struggles pioneered the
profession of executive search more than 60 years
ago. Today, the firm serves as a trusted advisor,
providing integrated leadership solutions and
helping its clients change the world, one leadership
team at a time. For more information about
Heidrick & Struggles, please visit www.heidrick.com.