Building on our study findings that CEOs who lead through influence were the most effective, we followed up by conducting interviews to learn about the development advice and training these leaders had received. We asked leaders to describe how they made the journey to becoming the highly effective leaders they were. What emerged is that a leader’s evolution generally proceeds in iterative cycles, with steps forward often followed by backsliding into old habits and then a renewed effort at change. It’s a process of trial and error, and often of fits and starts, as the daily grind of immediate demands diverts attention from one’s inner work. Those who continue to progress in the journey typically go through a three-phase cycle.

First, they are confronted with a necessity for change either because they took on a new challenge that reveals the shortfalls in their leadership or through feedback from their higher-up, colleagues, or mentor.

There are going to be surprises no matter how well you know a company. Learning about them early is challenging because employees, even at the highest levels, are reluctant to share troubling information. Learning what you need to know requires rigorous questioning while conveying in a compelling way that you absolutely want people to speak openly.

A CEO coming in from the outside needs to emphasize getting a good fix on the full range of business operations, the strengths and weaknesses of the leadership team, and the nature of the culture.

Building strong relationships with your board members is another top priority of a new CEO. Yes, you’ve gone through an intensive interview process with them, and they’ve just selected you. But in the words of one CEO: “You won't know if you were selected by an inch or a mile.” Some directors may disagree with your vision and plans; some may even be dead set against you, but won’t share those sentiments with you.

In our work with executives, we’ve seen that joining another board early in a CEO’s tenure may be too large a demand on time, but after the CEO has achieved success, their middle to later years should afford more time for valuable external activities. The key is to make sure a board opportunity is truly valuable in terms of insights to bring back inside.

8. Succeeding With Succession

One way in which we hope our CEO Life Cycle findings will held bend the curve of success for CEOs is by shedding light on these junctures so that CEOs can anticipate and prepare for them and boards can address these problems. In this chapter, we focus on another way the board relationship is often problematic: when a board is not closely involved with a CEO throughout their tenure, they are missing the opportunity to ensure that a strong bench of talented leaders who could be the next CEO are identified and their abilities are developed.