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No leadership position has a greater impact on an organization’s success than the CEO. Yet, very little data exists on how chief executive officers tend to perform over time.
To better understand CEO performance, we launched an extensive research study: The CEO Life Cycle Project.
Our team of researchers tracked year-by-year financial performance, spanning:
7,000
data points over a 40-year timeframe
747
S&P 500 CEOs' complete tenures
42
in-depth interviews with CEOs and board directors
What we found was a surprising pattern of headwinds and tailwinds that CEOs are likely to face during their years in the role, upending some common views about CEO tenure and value creation. Insights from this research have important implications, including:
Read the full article in the November/December issue of Harvard Business Review.
Download the PDF