CEO Excellence
The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest
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4.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
New York Times Bestseller • Wall Street Journal Bestseller
From McKinsey & Company, the world’s most influential management consulting firm, comes CEO Excellence, an insight-packed leadership book that reveals how the best CEOs think and act—based on interviews with elite leaders from Netflix, JPMorgan Chase, General Motors, Sony, and more.
Being a CEO at a major company is one of the toughest executive roles—Fortune?500 CEOs often face massive stakes, yet many fail early: 30% don’t last three years, and 40% are deemed ineffective within eighteen months. What separates successful CEOs from the rest?
The authors began with over 2,400 public-company CEOs, narrowed to an elite sixty-seven who participated in multi-hour interviews. Among them: Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase), Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Reed Hastings (Netflix), Kazuo Hirai (Sony), Ken Chenault (American Express), Mary Barra (GM), Peter Brabeck-Letmathe (Nestlé), and others—offering rich insight into CEO best practices, leadership strategy, and business execution.
Their candid conversations and McKinsey’s data reveal how the top CEOs use core mindsets and signature practices—across strategy, culture, talent, stakeholder engagement, board relations, and personal effectiveness—to deliver extraordinary results.
Practical, unprecedented in scope, and essential for leaders at every level, CEO Excellence is a management manual grounded in real-world CEO experience and leadership innovation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"The best CEOs create a game-changing vision for their company," write Dewar, Keller, and Malhotra, all senior partners at management consultancy McKinsey, in their peppy debut. In setting out to identify "CEOs who moved the needle most," the trio looked primarily at executives from the largest public companies with six or more years of experience who delivered returns to shareholders, then "opened the aperture" to include some women and minority CEOs who made an impact, as well. They interviewed each extensively, and surfaced six key responsibilities: "setting the direction, aligning the organization, mobilizing through leaders, engaging the board, connecting with stakeholders, and managing personal effectiveness." The best CEOs, they write, keep their eye on all six. The survey's strength is in its wealth of case studies—the authors cover successes and failures at such companies as Best Buy, Intuit, and Netflix, and outline how effective leaders have dealt with boards (adopting a mindset where "my role is to help directors help the business"), connected with stakeholders (understanding their "motivations, hopes, and fears" helps), and lived their "to-be"—in addition to their to-do—lists. Conversational and thoughtful, this survey will help struggling CEOs get back on track.
