CEOs are hired to handle pressure, but how much is too much? We look at 5 of the most daunting pressure points in today’s world—and new ways to navigate them.
By Russell Pearlman / Illustrations by Tim Ames
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How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
Technology and
Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
AI in the Workplace
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
AI: A Stealth Weapon
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Talent Recruitment
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
Technology and
Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
The Breaking
Point
In one way, the pressure Richard Kerr faces today hasn’t changed much since he became CEO nearly 25 years ago. The formula for the
job was pretty basic: Make something, sell something, and make a profit on that something. But in the post-pandemic era, Kerr, the head of a Dallas-based insurance firm, feels something has changed about his job. The pressure, it seems, is decidedly different.
Some of this is attributable to the looming shadow of artificial intelligence. Sure, Kerr has been around long enough to remember when computer terminals were as big as TV sets, and the only clouds were hanging in the sky. Artificial intelligence feels like an entirely different animal, disruptive beyond imagination. He sees some great opportunities—like using AI’s machine learning to assess a potential new region for business, as opposed to the clunky method of sending people there. But he can’t say when those tools might come around. How do you decide how to expand for the long term in such a world? How do you make sure competitors don’t beat you to the punch?
People pressures are different too. Kerr says his firm’s growth has mainly come from his staff’s skills and experience, something that
young recruits working remotely don’t pick up from veteran staffers. “Even though we’re connected, you wind up out of sync,” he says. Meanwhile, he must make decisions with two private-equity investors tracking his every move—this, while living in a world with so much turmoil in various governments, a shaky global stock market, and not one, but two major wars. How do CEOs run the show in such an environment? Projecting confidence, a critical leadership trait, is pretty tough. “You can’t just sit back and say ‘I’m smart. I know what
I’m doing,’” he says.
Not even for a day.
The term chief executive officer is thought to have originated in 1917, around the time corporations started using sophisticated techniques to measure a firm’s success. In the 100-plus years since, certainly many CEOs have faced some tough times. In the 1930s, there was a global worldwide depression. In the 60s, leaders grappled with amazing but threatening new technologies. The 21st century brought
two new pressures: globalization, and the challenge of integrating the internet into business life.
But in the minds of some experts, the pressures CEOs face now are unprecedented both in quality and quantity. A decade ago, a new
CEO could confidently rely on a playbook to face most challenges. These days, experts say, there’s no such playbook. There is just too much happening—leaders say they can hardly catch their breath. Indeed, one Korn Ferry study found that 71 percent of CEOs in the US alone confess to having “imposter syndrome,” a corner-office crisis of confidence unheard of in the days of Jack Welch. Bosses can't
even take their personal safety for granted.
For many, it’s as if the walls are closing in, slowly but surely. “There’s no one solution that fits all,” says Laura Manson-Smith, Korn
Ferry’s global leader of organization strategy consulting, a role that puts her smack in the middle of the disruption so many firms have encountered. For his part, Simon Freakley, chairman and CEO of management consultant AlixPartners, puts it this way: “CEOs are truly
in the hot seat.”
This is all in addition to the personal safety threats some CEOs felt after last year's shooting in New York of one of their ranks. Sure,
chief executives know they are paid well to overcome nerve-rattling pressures. Yet some experts are now wondering if CEOs have reached their breaking point. In 2023, CEO turnover at the world’s largest companies was only slightly lower than the record level of changes in 2022. This year the turnover continues near 2022’s record pace, with the difference that much of it hasn’t been voluntary. Of the 191 Russell 3000 Index company heads who have left in 2024, 74—or nearly 40 percent—were reportedly fired or forced out, according to data compiled by independent researcher Exechange. That’s the most at this time of year since the firm began tracking CEO departures last decade.
What’s behind all this drama? No one can know for sure. Academics may debate it for years. But in search of answers, Briefings dug
into every nook and cranny of the corner office. We consulted dozens of pros inside and outside Korn Ferry, and, of course, hundreds
of CEOs—as well as the workers who have a front seat to all of it—as we considered the most daunting pressure points CEOs face
today. In the end, we settled on five. Some are familiar, others are not. And for each one, we raised the question: How can CEOs
solve it?
CEOs by the Numbers
Average Total Compensation
S&P 500 CEOs. Source: Georgetown University, Equilar
Demographics
S&P 500 companies
2015:
93% men 7% women
CEOs Admitting to ‘Imposter Syndrome’
Source: Korn Ferry Workforce Report 2024
US:
71%
UK:
45%
India: 73%
Middle East:
57%
Australia: 47%
“You can’t put your head in the sand for this one.”
The Problem:
Artificial intelligence could disrupt everything, but few
leaders really know how it will.
The Solution:
Dedicate a team to exploring AI and crafting a strategy, then experiment.
Read more
The Problem:
The traditional tailwinds driving sales and profit growth have faded,
and many companies are finding they can’t grow without them.
The Solution:
Leaders need to shift their company cultures to encourage a greater tolerance for risk.
“Where are the big ideas?”
Growth: It’s Vanishing
The Problem:
CEOs can no longer expect to make business
decisions without facing some employee dissent.
The Solution:
Be much more diligent and transparent in how you communicate.
“The moment you sneeze, somebody knows about it.”
Empowered Employees
The Problem:
The number of activist campaigns is surging, nipping at CEOs’ heels or creating wide disruptions.
The Solution:
Communicate consistently with shareholders— but don’t give in when it doesn’t make sense.
“I’m looking for CEOs to show some courage.”
Active Activists
The Problem:
Uncertainty isn’t going away, but many
leaders refuse to deal with it.
The Solution:
Become more agile. Simple to state, hard to execute.
“If you’re not agile, you’ll die.”
The World—and the Economy—at War
Back to the top
Up Next
AI: A Stealth Weapon
01 AI: A Stealth Weapon
02 Growth: It’s Vanishing
03 Empowered Employees
04 Active Activists
05 The World—and the Economy—at War
Read more
Read more
Read more
Read more
Average Age:
Average Tenure:
AI: A Stealth Weapon
2015: 58
Now: 57
2015: 10.8 yrs
Now: 7.2 yrs
2015: $10.5 million
Now: $16.3 million
96% men 4% women
Now:
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Maybe the AI “revolution” won’t lead to much. So what if it makes emails more grammatically correct or speeds up coding? Perhaps it will never be able to provide information that reliable. One MIT researcher even feels the bump in corporate productivity might be as little as 1 percent over 10 years.
With such uncertainty surrounding AI, leaders might be tempted to hold off for now—to let other firms spend big on AI and expand resources making mistakes—until there’s clear proof that it makes a difference in their specific business. Dave Rossi, president of Korn Ferry’s Global Industrial Manufacturing Advisory, says he’s currently seeing that approach across C-suites and boardrooms. “You feel like you have to invest in it, even if you don’t believe in it,” he says.
But CEOs who delay could face the danger of not committing to a valuable new technology—or embracing it too late. Business historians can recite a host of lessons from the past along these lines, pulling out such latecomers to new technology as Blockbuster and Sears, Roebuck and Co. But while the first functional artificial intelligence dates all the way back to 1951, most of the world only woke up to the once-in-a-generation potential of AI when ChatGPT hit the scene much more recently. This, many believe, could be the next internet or combustible engine—if only people, especially CEOs, knew how to use it and when. “It’s seen as a technology waiting for a problem,” says Jean-Marc Laouchez, president of the Korn Ferry Institute.
Back to the top
Up Next
Growth: It’s Vanishing
We’re seeing how critical hiring AI talent has already become.”
AI:
A Stealth Weapon
“
You can’t put your head in
the sand for this one.”
Some CEOs, like Peter Ross of Senior Helpers, a $500 million-a-year firm offering in-home healthcare, are already looking to the future. “I’m excited and nervous at the same time,” he says. He’s hopeful the technology will make it easier to monitor the health of the company’s patients, among other tasks. But the real game changer for Senior Helpers would be for AI to streamline the massive task of organizing, assigning, and deploying the firm’s 20,000 caregivers in its more than 380 franchise locations. Sure, to an outsider, none of this is as thrilling as watching Will Smith take on an army of robots, but it’s where the battle for survival in Ross’s business will be fought. “You can’t put your head in the sand for this one,” he says.
Of course, one pressure follows another. Already, a variety of stakeholders are demanding to see the return of investment firms who are pouring resources into AI, which is virtually impossible to calculate at this stage. And yet CEOs know they’re risking market share, even their entire businesses, if they don’t invest. Indeed, the cost of not reacting is already being felt in many sectors. According to a survey of nearly 8,000 firms that Korn Ferry commissioned from Telemetry, a talent data specialist that probes publicly available workforce data, high-performing companies had twice as many AI and machine-learning employees as their low-performing counterparts. “We’re seeing how critical hiring Al talent has already become,” says David Ford, managing director of Telemetry.
Experts say one of best ways for leaders to deal with AI is to make sure others in their firm aren’t feeling the same pressure they’re under. In other words, don’t overload managers of other divisions with AI responsibilities. Dedicate a leader and a team to assess which of the firm’s functions could be positively affected by AI adoption (or directly hurt if a rival adopts AI). Task the team with crafting and implementing an AI strategy, understanding that ultimately its use will be decentralized among employees to use effectively. Key AI roles don’t necessarily have to be permanent, either: Hiring interim talent can bring in the required expertise without a long-term financial commitment.
Smart firms know they need to set up safeguards for the use of AI tools, given concerns both about data privacy and error-prone output. That said, Paul Dinan, an advisory leader in Korn Ferry’s Global Technology Market practice, says the best leaders are finding ways to protect their business while still encouraging their teams to embrace AI and make informed decisions. “Don’t be disappointed in the apparent lack of progress. Change needs a long runway,” Dinan says. It’s advice Ross at Seniors Helpers is actually taking. Instead of immediately demanding that the organization’s 380 franchisee-owned offices adopt the technology to organize caregiver schedules, he’ll test it out at the five locations he directly controls. “Don’t put technology in until it’s ready,” Ross says.
Worldwide spending on AI (estimate)
$50
billion
Source: IDC, Gartner
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
$85.3
billion
$118
billion
$154
billion
$200
billion
Overview
01 AI: A Stealth Weapon
02 Growth: It’s Vanishing
03 Empowered Employees
04 Active Activists
05 The World—and the Economy—at War
The Problem:
Artificial intelligence could disrupt everything,
but few leaders really know how it will.
The Solution:
Dedicate a team to exploring AI and crafting
a strategy, then experiment.
Growth: It’s Vanishing
3 of 3
Train employees, foster a culture where AI empowers—rather than intimidates—employees, and develop strategies to integrate the technology while still encouraging the strengths of human workforces.
Help employees adapt to AI:
2 of 3
The goal is to experiment, iterate, learn, and improve, rather than to achieve perfection.
Encourage experimentation (within boundaries):
1 of 3
What are the challenges and opportunities? How can AI’s power best be distributed among employees? What are the potential ethical implications?
Get answers to the right
AI questions:
According to one Korn Ferry survey, 82 percent of business leaders say AI will profoundly affect their businesses—they
just don’t know how yet. What is known
is that it’s expensive. So how should
leaders think about this technology?
steps
Getting the Jump on AI
“
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
AI in the Workplace
Technology and
Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Technology and
Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Talent Recruitment
Related Insights
VIEW THE
PODCAST
READ THE
FULL MAGAZINE
Overview
01 AI: A Stealth Weapon
02 Growth: It’s Vanishing
03 Empowered Employees
04 Active Activists
05 The World—and the Economy—at War
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
Technology and Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Related Insights
READ THE
FULL MAGAZINE
VIEW THE
PODCAST
x
Contents
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
Imagine that your job’s most important metric suddenly fell off a cliff. For decades, this metric had been the one thing you could point to as evidence of your success. And now, like some horror movie, it’s starting to slip away.
Welcome to the world most CEOs inhabit. Outside of a few technology and healthcare niches, corporate growth charts are hardly impressive, which can make for some awkward questions come earnings season. For the five years ending in 2023, S&P 500 firms grew their revenues,
on average, by 6.9 percent a year. In 2024 that number is more than one-third lower, at just 4 percent. It’s the lowest annual revenue growth of any year in the 21st century that did not have
a recession. Experts say 2024 won’t be a one-off, either.
Academics will debate for decades why something so fundamental to business could dip so much. Certainly, many CEOs haven’t had particularly strong economic tailwinds to help them out. Twenty years ago, big established economies such as the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan were growing, as a group, by 3.3 percent annually. As recently as 2018, those advanced economies grew 3.1 percent. In 2023, growth was just 1.8 percent, and 2024 is shaping up to finish close to that far lower number. And in places such as the UK, the economy isn’t expanding at all. Some CEOs, grasping for straws, have turned to mergers as a quick fix, but their expenses rarely pay off. “Stringing acquisitions together is boring and expensive,” says Korn Ferry’s Rossi. “Most destroy value.”
Up Next
Empowered Employees
There’s been
a real hesitancy about making decisions that
need to be made.”
The Problem:
The traditional tailwinds driving sales and profit growth have faded,
and many companies are finding they can’t grow without them.
The Solution:
Leaders need to shift their company cultures to encourage
a greater tolerance for risk.
Growth: It’s Vanishing
“
Where are the
big ideas?”
Some solutions may be right in front of CEOs’ noses, such as expanding more into developing countries or searching for more solutions for the climate. But the biggest
key to future growth, many experts believe, will come—as it usually has—from innovation: breakthrough manufacturing processes that make products faster, better, or cheaper;
or new gadgets that save consumers time and money. Aside from AI, says Grant Duncan,
a Korn Ferry senior client partner and the UK and Ireland consumer practice lead, most companies are focusing on incremental, not ambitious, improvements. “Where are the
big ideas?” he asks.
Talk to almost any CEO and you’ll find they’re as mystified about this idea drought as they are about the decline in growth. Sometimes the most obvious step can help: Telemetry, for example, found in its research for Korn Ferry that high-performing large firms were the ones that had simply hired more chief growth officers than others—by a whopping 541 percent since 2014. Of the firms named to Korn Ferry’s World’s Most Admired Companies list, eight in 10 say that growth depends less on investment in technology and more on people—hiring the right ones, aligning them properly in the right teams, and offering a skills- and career-development program that’s not based on a check-the-box webinar. “I’m surprised how long it took companies post-COVID to really look at how best to adapt to grow,” says Korn Ferry’s Manson-Smith. “There’s been a real hesitancy about making decisions that need to be made.”
It’s a complicated formula, to be sure, this business of creating a culture to foster innovation. And nobody can know with certainty what works. Still, when Humana, the giant healthcare provider, managed to double its revenues in five years, it was partly due to creating health goals not only for patients but employees simultaneously. One example: successfully improving the health of various communities the company serves by 20 percent, using the Center for Disease Control’s Healthy Days Measures. “You can’t have world-class customer engagement without world-class associate engagement,” says Tim Huval, the company’s chief administrative officer.
A Growth in Chief Growth Officers
2014:
38
Source: Telemetry
Change: 668%
Now:
292
2014:
24
Now:
163
Back to the top
Empowered Employees
At companies with more than 2,000 employees
At companies with more than 5,000 employees
Change: 579%
3 of 5
on developing high-performing teams.
Focus
2 of 5
a culture that rewards innovation
and experimentation.
Create
1 of 5
which skills are needed to grow the business, then hire and develop people who have those skills.
Assess
Companies are aware that growth has gotten harder to come by. Indeed, the number of mid- and large-sized firms that have hired a chief growth officer has risen by nearly 700 percent over the last decade, according to research firm Telemetry. But a dedicated executive isn’t enough to get a company consistently growing.
steps
Plant the Seed and It Will…
4 of 5
underserved markets rather than hotly
competitive, low-growth, established ones.
Go after
5 of 5
and retain great middle
managers and executives.
Attract
“
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
AI in the Workplace
Technology and
Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Technology and
Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Talent Recruitment
Related Insights
VIEW THE
PODCAST
READ THE
FULL MAGAZINE
Overview
01 AI: A Stealth Weapon
02 Growth: It’s Vanishing
03 Empowered Employees
04 Active Activists
05 The World—and the Economy—at War
x
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
Technology and Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Related Insights
READ THE
FULL MAGAZINE
VIEW THE
PODCAST
Contents
Overview
01 AI: A Stealth Weapon
02 Growth: It’s Vanishing
03 Empowered Employees
04 Active Activists
05 The World—and the Economy—at War
x
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
It’s a scenario that has happened more than once—in fact, it happens seemingly every quarter. The CEO calls an all-hands meeting to discuss the company’s performance. Sometimes the news is good, sometimes not so much. Usually, an in-house forum is opened up to employees
to ask questions and make comments online. It might not go well. It may even go very badly.
Some ask questions about raises. Others ask whether layoffs are pending. A few question why the leader doesn’t trust them. In short order, the comments end up on social media and then in the press. It’s the last thing a CEO wants to see, says Laura Fravel, an executive communications coach and trainer in New York, but has become much harder to avoid. “Employees are no longer complacent to just go with the flow and take the next command.”
In 2024, much of the focus has been on how much leverage employees have lost. Few people talk anymore about the Great Resignation. Tales of workers quitting on a dime and immediately landing higher-paying jobs are in the rearview mirror. But don’t try telling any of that to top leaders, who can see that corporate hierarchy has been turned entirely on its head. First and foremost, every CEO knows—or should know—that they are now operating in a glass house.
Any misstep—in a meeting, in a memo, even in a casual hallway conversation—can create havoc. “The moment you sneeze, somebody knows about it,” says Ellie Filler, managing partner of
Korn Ferry’s EMEA Human Resources practice.
Up Next
Active Activists
Employees are no longer complacent to just go with the flow and take the next command.”
The Problem:
CEOs can no longer expect to make business decisions
without facing some employee dissent.
The Solution:
Be much more diligent and transparent in
how you communicate.
Empowered Employees
“
The moment you sneeze,
somebody knows about it.”
This is all a product, of course, of a number of demographic and multimedia forces clashing all at once. And it’s the price companies are paying for taking away employees’ pensions and other loyalty-ensuring perks. Most employees, even those whose families might have worked at the same firm for five or even six generations, are no longer incentivized to stay. The average tenure for millennials and Gen Xers? Under three years. To their parents’ shock, these younger workers have zero compunction about complaining about the boss to colleagues. Indeed, there is a sense of impunity among some. “When employees are not motivated, they have nothing to lose,” says Mark Royal, a Korn Ferry senior partner and expert in employee engagement.
Experts say the best way to motivate empowered employees is to create a more personal stake in the firm’s mission—so they do have something to lose. Many want to be in more autonomous teams with opportunities to learn skills and define their own career path. If spectacular pay raises aren’t an option, better benefits and flexibility can make a difference. A Korn Ferry workforce study, in fact, found that workers slightly favor strong benefits over strong pay.
It’s been a mantra for a while, but workers tend to respond positively when they feel authenticity from their leadership. “You don’t have to be nicey-nicey or sweetie-sweetie, you just have to be real,” says Filler. These days, a lack of transparency and authenticity is actually what leads to trouble: CEOs who say one thing and do another may be pilloried by their employees or fired by their boards. “Employees are only going to fill any information gaps with stories they already are telling themselves,” says Naomi Sutherland, global lead for Korn Ferry’s Life Sciences practice.
Trying to get a handle on any of this isn’t easy. Each quarter, Swapnil Shinde, the CEO of AI accounting-software firm Zeni, gathers his 350 employees for a video town hall about what’s going on in the company, everything from revenues to the number of customers to the firm’s margins and goals. After those discussions, individual managers make presentations covering more details. If there’s bad news, it’s delivered first, and, Shinde insists, not in a finger-pointing way. It seems to work. The engineering team at Shinde’s previous firm followed him when he started Zeni.
The Number of Work ‘Influencers’ on LinkedIn
2004
*LinkedIn members with “influencer” in title
Back to the top
The platform employees have to air their concerns and criticism has taken off in the 21st century.
Active Activists
2008
2012
2016
2020
2024
0
2K
4K
6K
8K
10K
12K
14K
16K
3 of 3
Explain why things are
being done as transparently and
empathetically as possible.
Be authentic:
2 of 3
Routinely ask for employee feedback on business and work/life issues, then act on it.
Listen better:
1 of 3
Employees should be rewarded for coming
up with creative ways to solve problems.
Encourage collaboration:
Workers may not have as much leverage
as they did during the Great Resignation,
but their loyalty to their employers continues to fall. They may often openly criticize (or praise) management decisions in their
social networks. What can CEOs do?
steps
Finding A Balance
“
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
AI in the Workplace
Technology and
Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Technology and
Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Talent Recruitment
Related Insights
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PODCAST
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FULL MAGAZINE
Empowered Employees
Up Next
Back to the top
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
Technology and Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Related Insights
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FULL MAGAZINE
VIEW THE
PODCAST
Overview
01 AI: A Stealth Weapon
02 Growth: It’s Vanishing
03 Empowered Employees
04 Active Activists
05 The World—and the Economy—at War
x
Contents
Overview
01 AI: A Stealth Weapon
02 Growth: It’s Vanishing
03 Empowered Employees
04 Active Activists
05 The World—and the Economy—at War
x
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
Recently, an activist investor called a CEO’s business strategy “incoherent.” Another chastised a CEO for their social-media posts. A third threatened to boycott a firm’s products unless it changed its hiring practices.
Well-intentioned or not, activists can be a massive distraction to a company’s executive team, not to mention a huge cost of time and money. One Fortune 500 firm ran up a $65 million tab fending off a group that was trying to replace board members. Any time spent on activist campaigns is time not spent on product development, motivating employees, or strategic planning. Plus, there’s the high-profileness of it all. Campaigns that used to slip past most stakeholders are now out in public. “It can make it onto the front page,” says Stephanie Hill, head of index at Mellon Investments.
As if CEOs didn’t have enough going on, the volume of these campaigns has gone through the roof, with 1,162 ongoing in 2023, triple the year before, and continuing to a five-year high in the first half of 2024. Interestingly, it’s a strong, not weak, stock market that seems to be causing this jump, because CEOs can blame a low stock price on a faltering Dow. Activists have also become more aggressive because of a recent rule change by US securities regulators that makes it easier for them to win board seats.
Up Next
The World—and the
Economy—at War
The Problem:
The number of activist campaigns is surging, nipping at CEOs’ heels or creating wide disruptions.
The Solution:
Communicate consistently with shareholders— but don’t give in when it doesn’t make sense.
Active
Activists
“
I’m looking for CEOs
to show some courage.”
Certainly, the rate of the campaigns could slow down, but activists aren’t likely to change a kind of outsider scrutiny that some CEOs see as nipping at their heels. Beyond financial matters, some activists have in recent years started questioning such areas as a firm’s commitments to social and environmental causes. Depending on where they’re headquartered, the occupant of the corner suite is being told to do a lot more—or a lot less. “It’s not just that you do it, it’s how you do it,” Korn Ferry’s Filler says. In response, experts say, one step is not to give activists reasons to show up. “If you want a less meat-grinder life as a CEO, grow the top line, predict profitability accurately, and have an engaged employee base,” says Korn Ferry global vice chair Jane Edison Stevenson.
At the same time, CEOs cannot allow activists to dictate their every move. Over the past five years, David Dotlich, a Korn Ferry president and senior partner, has seen no fewer than five CEO clients shelve growth ideas because developing them would also mean missing short-term earnings estimates. The bosses were afraid—of the market punishing the stock or activists coming after the company. “I’m looking for CEOs to show some courage,” Dotlich says.
What Activists Want
Source: Harvard Law School
Back to the top
Changes in digital transformation and innovation
40%
10%
20%
30%
Environmental, social, and governance changes
Changes in board/leadership
Changes in
financial performance
and capital allocation
The World—and the
Economy—at War
3 of 3
Accurately forecast earnings and
explain corporate strategies.
Be transparent:
2 of 3
Proactively figure out company
areas of risk and be on the lookout for
cost savings, even in good times.
Think like an activist:
1 of 3
All executives should be great at managing conflicts, balancing stakeholders, and building networks.
Strengthen the
leadership pipeline:
What can leaders do when an
activist comes calling? How do you
avoid having them show up at all?
steps
Feet to Fire
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
AI in the Workplace
Technology and
Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Technology and
Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Talent Recruitment
Related Insights
VIEW THE
PODCAST
READ THE
FULL MAGAZINE
Active Activists
Up Next
Back to the top
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
Technology and Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Related Insights
READ THE
FULL MAGAZINE
VIEW THE
PODCAST
Overview
01 AI: A Stealth Weapon
02 Growth: It’s Vanishing
03 Empowered Employees
04 Active Activists
05 The World—and the Economy—at War
x
Contents
Overview
01 AI: A Stealth Weapon
02 Growth: It’s Vanishing
03 Empowered Employees
04 Active Activists
05 The World—and the Economy—at War
x
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
Let’s start with the good news. Despite years of dire predictions, there’s no global depression. Stock markets have remained robust. Inflation in most parts of the world seems to be tamed.
But look at the many other factors that can affect business, and you wonder how a lot of CEOs get out of bed. For 2024 alone, the list of calamities they need to monitor includes two very visible wars, a decelerating economy in China, a massive US election, major natural disasters in Eastern Europe and Asia, significant antitrust actions in the US and Europe, and massive swings in global stock and bond markets. Some handle all of this by putting in long hours of work. Others try to stick to what they know best. “A lot of CEOs keep their heads down,” says Korn Ferry’s Dotlich, who has authored bestsellers on leadership and is a close confidant of CEOs at some of the world’s biggest firms. “They figure all that uncertainty is just too overwhelming.”
Up Next
AI: A Stealth Weapon
A lot of CEOs keep their heads down. They figure all that uncertainty is just
too overwhelming.”
The Problem:
Uncertainty isn’t going away, but many
leaders refuse to deal with it.
The Solution:
Become more agile. Simple
to state, hard to execute.
The World—and the Economy—at War
“
If you’re not agile, you’ll die.”
There isn’t a CEO, of course, who doesn’t know how much the COVID-19 outbreak completely upended everything—but it doesn’t take a pandemic to cause corporate chaos. In 2021, a cargo ship went aground in the Suez Canal and caused more than 300 other ships behind it to be stranded. The total loss in trade was an estimated $9.6 billion a day. Disasters, natural and man-made, are increasingly frequent too; the world experiences about 400 annually, according to the International Monetary Fund—twice as many as it did a generation ago. Few CEOs can survive without adding all of this to the planning pile—not to mention taking into account such worries as inflation, recession fears, and volatile markets.
Experts say the best CEOs realize they can’t take this all on alone, so they build trust and empower their people. The best ones also increase flexibility—their own and their company’s—to a whole new level. “If you’re not agile, you’ll die,” Filler says. Simple advice, to be sure, but experts say it’s surprising how little many leaders seem to be adjusting. In a Korn Ferry survey, only two-thirds of them listed agility and openness to change as critical, while only about one-third said their organization needed agility.
Agile leaders move with speed and boldness, experts say. They plan for future scenarios to limit potential concerns, build capacity to shift people to where they’re most needed, and provide resources and support to promote employee health and well-being. In periods of uncertainty, CEOs have to be both forceful and empathetic, acknowledging the problem but also reminding workers what needs to be done. “At the end of the day, after all, CEOs are hired to handle disruption,” says Dotlich.
World Uncertainty Index
2004
Source: IMF
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Financial
crisis
2008
2012
2016
2020
2024
0
10K
20K
30K
40K
60K
50K
The IMF tracks usage of the word “uncertain” in economic reports across 143 countries, suggesting when CEOs are facing volatile times.
Pandemic
begins
Global inflation spikes
AI: A Stealth Weapon
1 of 5
Avoid groupthink and challenge
pre-conceived notions.
Diversify perspectives:
The globe is about 50 percent more uncertain than it was at the beginning of the 21st century, according to the IMF’s World Uncertainty Index. How can leaders prepare for something that might or might not
happen—or can’t even be imagined?
steps
Uncertainty Around Uncertainty
“
5 of 5
The trait can help leaders and workers
get through challenges.
Build and maintain resilience:
2 of 5
Focus on the “why we do”
versus “what we do.”
Anchor to the purpose:
3 of 5
Don’t let perfection
derail progress.
Embrace risk and experiment:
4 of 5
Prepare and empower your people
and partners, relying on their expertise
and ability to adjust.
Don’t go it alone:
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
AI in the Workplace
Technology and
Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Technology and
Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
Talent Recruitment
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PODCAST
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FULL MAGAZINE
The World—and
the Economy—
at War
Up Next
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Solving Your Toughest Leadership Development Challenges
Technology and Leadership Development: Working in Harmony
CEO: I’m an Imposter
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Overview
01 AI: A Stealth Weapon
02 Growth: It’s Vanishing
03 Empowered Employees
04 Active Activists
05 The World—and the Economy—at War
x
Contents
Overview
01 AI: A Stealth Weapon
02 Growth: It’s Vanishing
03 Empowered Employees
04 Active Activists
05 The World—and the Economy—at War
x
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
How Precise Execution Drives Sales Through Data
