Similarly, the CEO Life Cycle will help leaders play a better game by anticipating the evolving challenges of the CEO job and preparing for them. It will help CEOs recognize when they are heading into a new stage of their tenure and stay vigilant about avoiding common pitfalls made in that stage. Additionally, it will help them stay on the offense, proactively engaging in new learning and personal growth, ahead of the curve, as they progress through the stages. The findings can also help boards anticipate issues CEOs may face and engage with CEOs more vigorously to provide support at critical junctures.

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.

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.

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.