In the high-stakes world of corporate leadership, becoming a Fortune 500 CEO is an Everest-like ascent - with only the savviest managing to avoid falling off the mountain. In A CEO for All Seasons you'll find an essential climbing route that will take you through every stage. Featured in this tip-dense guide is wisdom from some of the world's most iconic leaders, including Dell Technologies' Michael Dell, Merck's Ken Frazier, Nasdaq's Adena Friedman, Morgan Stanley's James Gorman, Blackstone's Steve Schwarzman, ASML's Peter Wennink, and Chevron's Mike Wirth.
Unique in applying a number of sophisticated metrics to isolate the world's top 200 CEOs, reduce them to a representative sample, and then reap their wisdom, the McKinsey team, in A CEO for All Seasons, spotlights the specific stage-based hurdles that CEOs face. From preparing for the role to starting strong to sustaining momentum to ensuring a lasting legacy, the book leaves no segment of the journey unmapped. Along the way, it offers proven strategies for maintaining forward progress and, crucially, s readers to common blind spots that can sabotage success, as revealed by a detailed survey of thousands of executives.
Whether you're an aspiring leader or a new-to-the-job CEO - or even a board member wanting to better steward your company's performance - this is the compact, hands-on guide you've needed. Its compendium of pressure-tested tips is a must-have game changer for leaders at all levels.
Carolyn Dewar leads the CEO Excellence practice for consultancy McKinsey and Company, where she is also a Senior Partner. Carolyn coaches many Fortune 100 CEOs to maximize their effectiveness in the role, including business aspiration-setting, organization shifts, top-team effectiveness, managing external stakeholders, board engagement, and resetting their own personal operating model. She works extensively with clients to drive performance at pivotal moments—such as mergers, strategic shifts, crisis and lead large-scale improvement programs integrating strategic, operational, and cultural initiatives. Carolyn also leads ongoing research on CEO and leadership effectiveness and has published widely, including her new book CEO EXCELLENCE which draw on intimate interviews with 67 of the world’s best CEOs to understand the mindsets that set them apart. Carolyn is a Canadian and British citizen, and currently lives in San Francisco with her two children and husband.