I’m comforted by something I’ve come to believe more and more in recent years—that it’s not always good for one person to have too much power for too long. Even when a CEO is working productively and effectively, it’s important for a company to have change at the top. I don’t know if other CEOs agree with this, but I’ve noticed that you can accumulate so much power in a job that it becomes harder to keep a check on how you wield it. Little things can start to shift. Your confidence can easily tip over into overconfidence and become a liability. You can start to feel that you’ve heard every idea, and so you become impatient and dismissive of others’ opinions. It’s not intentional, it just comes with the territory. You have to make a conscious effort to listen, to pay attention to the multitude of opinions. I’ve raised the issue with the executives I work most closely with as a kind of safeguard. “If you notice me being too dismissive or impatient, you need to tell me.” They’ve had to on occasion, but I hope not too often.

For two out of three CEOs in our database, performance was lower in their years six to ten than it was in years one to five. Some gave up their gains of the first five years altogether. Results may not actually dive into negative territory, but if they do, they vacillate up and down around a mean, which only reinforces the sense that one can let up on the gas.

The danger is exacerbated when boards also become less energetic in pushing for vigorous changes in strategy or operations. As director Ann Hanley shared, “It’s easy to get into incremental mode.” A CEOs internal team may resist a continuous quick pace of change.

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.

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.

Another factor at work here, though, is the status quo bias, a powerful and widespread psychological force in business. The concept was introduced by researchers William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser, who showed in studies with many kinds of decision-makers, including managers, that “when making an important choice, people are more likely to pick the option that maintains things as they are currently.” When you’re enjoying success, your status quo bias is reinforced, which might be just fine. But given that after five, six, or seven years, market conditions will surely have evolved, it usually won't be fine to stick with the status quo later. When responding to those changes would involve making a substantial alteration to or even reversal of a winning strategy or to operational engineering you have orchestrated, the status quo bias makes recognizing the need for change and making the case for it to your team and board a good deal more challenging.