Prior board experience can also be a great accelerator for incoming CEOs in developing relationships with their directors.

But these pulls on time can be siren calls, treacherous in their allure and taking too much time away from core responsibilities. Richard Anderson, former Delta and Amtrak CEO, warned that leaders can “easily go spend 20 to 25 percent of time on extracurriculars,” if they’re not vigilant. The cost versus benefits of these commitments must be weighed carefully. In the Launch stage, with such a press of competing priorities, setting strict limits is vital.

Yet CEOs can't just demand that board members engage more closely with them. “You have to lead the board,” Piyush Gupta said, “and persuade them of the direction you want to take the company, but at the same time, they are the bosses. It’s not straightforward.” Further complicating the relationship is that the CEO generally does not know who on the board supported them for the job and who did not.

Alternating between internal and external demands is only one way CEOs must learn to divide their time and energy. They also have to focus on the urgent here and now and on longer-term plans. In addition, they must be in command of the “hard stuff” of numbers and devote considerable time to the “soft stuff” of people management. Also crucial is striking a balance between taking decisive charge by quickly making some moves and engaging in learning more about the company. All require both/and thinking rather than either/or thinking. As skilled as leaders may have become in this over the course of their careers, the challenges of the Launch stage greatly up the ante on getting the balance right. Carol Tomé pulled off this balancing act with aplomb.

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.

Boards are like a team of star performers. Directors are appointed because they’re highly accomplished. Most have been successful executives. All have a depth of leadership experience. Directors are also selected because they have expertise the company needs. They have strong views about where the company should be heading and what’s going well and what’s going wrong. They can be of enormous assistance. But they can also be agitators against the CEO. Or the CEO might have the opposite problem, a board that is far too passive, that does not engage deeply enough in company issues and strategy setting or that focuses too much on narrower governance functions of financial oversight.