Staying ahead: How the best CEOs continually improve performance

In “Staying Ahead: How the Best CEOs Continually Improve Performance,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, Vikram Malhotra, and Kurt Strovink examine how to sustain high CEO performance after a strong start. Published by McKinsey Quarterly on May 25, 2023, the article focuses on the “middle stretch” of CEO tenure, when early momentum can turn into complacency and previously bold leaders may become protectors of the status quo.

Overarching Theme

The central message is that becoming a successful CEO is difficult, but maintaining CEO performance is even harder. McKinsey argues that midtenure CEOs must avoid the trap of believing yesterday’s strategy will keep working tomorrow. To extend performance, the best CEOs do four things: enhance their learning agenda, take an outsider’s perspective, collaboratively define the next S-curve, and future-proof the organization.

Major Takeaways for Business Leaders

1. Success can quietly create complacency.
The article warns that CEOs who start strong can become attached to the strategy, operating model, and performance system they built. This makes it harder to see when the organization needs another round of bold change.

2. Learning must evolve after the first few years.
Early in a CEO’s tenure, learning often comes naturally through customers, employees, investors, analysts, board members, and other stakeholders. Later, the best CEOs deliberately keep learning by spending time with customers, frontline employees, investors, external experts, peer CEOs, and even leaders in other industries.

3. CEOs need an outsider’s view of their own company.
McKinsey argues that the best CEOs periodically reassess the business as though they were newly appointed or newly acquiring the company. That means asking hard questions about capital markets, strategy, commercial performance, cost, capital, organization, talent, reputation, and governance.

4. The next S-curve should be co-created, not dictated.
The article emphasizes that high-performing CEOs use a collaborative process to define the company’s next performance curve. People are more committed to change when they help shape it, so the CEO’s role is to set direction while engaging leaders to build ownership.

5. Future-proofing is part of sustained performance.
McKinsey highlights the importance of preparing for crises before they happen, stress-testing stakeholder relationships, strengthening the talent bench, planning succession, and protecting the CEO’s own personal resilience.

Talking Points for Executives

A strong leadership team discussion can begin with: “Are we still leading from ambition, or have we become attached to our own success?”

This article is especially relevant for CEOs who are three to five years into the role, after the first wave of transformation has produced results. At that stage, the danger is not obvious failure; it is comfort. The organization may be performing well, but the next competitive threat, technology shift, customer behavior change, or operating-model challenge may already be forming.

Another useful talking point: the CEO must become the prime mover of change again. The article argues that the early license to shake things up fades over time. If the CEO does not deliberately reintroduce urgency, curiosity, and challenge, the organization may settle into habits that once created success but now limit the next stage of growth.

Reflection Questions

1. Where has our success made us less willing to challenge our own assumptions?
2. What are customers, frontline employees, investors, competitors, and outside experts seeing that we may be missing?
3. If a new CEO or new owner took over today, what would they change first?
4. Which businesses, geographies, products, or customer segments still deserve investment—and which do not?
5. What is our next S-curve, and have enough leaders helped shape it?
6. Are our crisis plans, stakeholder relationships, and risk indicators strong enough for the next shock?
7. Do we have succession plans for the most value-creating roles, including the CEO role?
8. Is the CEO’s current operating rhythm sustainable for the next several years?

Potential Action Items to Maintain and Elevate CEO Performance

Create a midtenure CEO reset agenda focused on learning, fresh diagnosis, next-stage strategy, resilience, and leadership sustainability.

Conduct an outsider review of the company. Ask what a new CEO, activist investor, private equity owner, or disruptive competitor would see—and what actions they would likely take.

Build a renewed CEO learning agenda that includes structured time with customers, frontline teams, investors, external experts, peer CEOs, and leaders from other industries.

Launch a collaborative next S-curve process with the executive team and selected next-level leaders. Use the process to generate ownership, not just input.

Stress-test the organization’s crisis readiness through tabletop exercises, leading-risk indicators, communication protocols, and stakeholder-response plans.

Review the company’s talent bench and succession pipeline, especially for roles that create or protect the most enterprise value.

Redesign the CEO’s calendar and energy system to protect strategic thinking, external learning, personal renewal, and high-value leadership moments.

Similar Articles to Recommend

“What Sets the World’s Best CEOs Apart” — McKinsey
A strong companion article on the six leadership dimensions and practices that distinguish excellent CEOs from average performers.

“CEO Excellence: How Do Leaders Assess Their Own Performance?” — McKinsey
Useful for CEOs and boards that want to translate CEO excellence into a self-assessment and development framework.

“The CEO’s Journey Is a 3-Act Play” — Harvard Business Review
A complementary HBR piece on how CEO priorities shift across tenure stages, including legitimacy, midtenure execution, and later-stage succession.

“How New CEOs Establish Legitimacy” — Harvard Business Review
A useful earlier-stage companion on how CEOs earn trust and influence before they can successfully lead large-scale change.

“Sending It Forward: Successfully Transitioning Out of the CEO Role” — McKinsey
A natural follow-up for CEOs thinking about succession, legacy, and how to set the organization up for success after their departure. McKinsey lists it as a related article to this piece.