Visualize a CEO standing at the intersection of two challenging pyramids. The upward pyramid is composed of customers, the board, stakeholders and the media. The downward pyramid  represents the organization: the executive team, sectors of the business and people who make up the enterprise. New CEOs must quickly learn what it means to reside in this high performing juncture between internal and external constituencies. Becoming the CEO is not a job change, it’s a career change.
No job experience can ever fully prepare a new or emerging CEO for this role, so an effective executive development program that develops crucial CEO skills and mindsets is critical.
The right executive program gives future CEOs the necessary time and space to develop personal, interpersonal, CEO and enterprise leadership effectiveness within an objective, thoughtful and accelerated time frame.
Personal leadership: Self-awareness is crucial to successful CEOs because the character, values and strengths of the CEO directly affect the performance of the entire enterprise. Self-aware leaders produce significantly better results in public companies according to our research on hundreds of firms.
Team leadership: Senior teams, by their nature, are often the least effective teams. A successful CEO must be able to effectively lead a “team of leaders” so that organizational growth can be sustained. Learning to engage and communicate across internal and external teams/ecosystems is critical.
Enterprise leadership: Successful CEOs must learn to transcend divisional and functional points of view to effectively lead the entire enterprise with purpose, vision and inspiration.
CEO leadership: CEOs are scrutinized on all sides and must therefore master the critical influencing financial/investors, business strategy and communication skills required to successfully manage multiple constituencies.
Find out more about Korn Ferry’s executive development programs.