Seeing CEO blind spots

Spring: Stepping up to the role. In the two to three years before the board decides on the next CEO, you should be gaining the experience, developing the skills, and demonstrating the qualities of an exceptional leader. Summer: Stepping into the role. During your first two years in the CEO role, you should get the organization to work at full potential productivity in the direction you’ve chosen. During this time, you should take bold actions that set the tone for your entire tenure.  Fall: Staying ahead while in the role. After starting strong, your next challenge will be to shape the company’s long-term journey and combat complacency—both your own and that of your employees. This means creating successive “S-curves” (periods of intense activity and radical improvement) that will boost performance at every level: you as a leader, your team, and the organization as a whole.  Winter: Sending it forward to the next CEO. That process involves recognizing when to leave, navigating the transition gracefully, and discovering your next journey.

To uncover what it takes to win in each season, we needed to understand where CEOs typically have blind spots. These are the areas where chief executives, on average, tend to be “unconsciously unskilled”—that is, unaware of what they don’t know.  In addition to the finding that most CEOs feel illusory superiority across all seasons, the authors’ research pointed to a short list of blind spots unique to each season in the role.  It was reasonable to assume that any areas where both the board and direct reports had a meaningfully different view from the CEO were highly likely to be genuine blind spots.

In the early years, new CEOs tend to be most overconfident about their ability to shift the culture. They typically come into the role with a clear point of view on where the organization needs to go, yet they underestimate the difficulty of aligning and mobilizing the employees to get there.  In the middle years, a blind spot often emerges related to having a clear and compelling vision for the company. Once a leader’s initial set of bold moves has largely played out positively (if the moves haven’t, the CEO is likely on their way out—involuntarily), their intense focus on a clear North Star dissipates. Without the inspiration, boldness, and mandate for change that CEOs feel early in their tenure, they find it hard to press “reset.”  Similarly, at this stage, maintaining perspective and remaining open to new ideas can become an issue. As the author of the organization’s journey to this point, the CEO tends to feel like they have all the answers.  During the latter years of a CEO’s tenure, strategic clarity becomes an issue. For some, this can be the result of a desire to protect one’s legacy by preventing any potential late-in-the-game ball drops, especially as it relates to hitting near-term earnings targets. Others may make overly risky moves to avoid a growth slowdown or to relieve boredom. Teamwork can also suffer.