In “What Sets the World’s Best CEOs Apart,” Carolyn Dewar and Scott Keller, senior partners at McKinsey & Company, discuss what distinguishes high-performing CEOs. The piece is an edited transcript from McKinsey’s Inside the Strategy Room podcast, hosted by Sean Brown, and was published on May 18, 2020. McKinsey frames the discussion around research on 7,800 CEOs across more than 70 countries and 24 industries, identifying six dimensions that define CEO excellence.

Overarching Theme

The article argues that great CEOs are not defined only by personality traits, charisma, or how they spend their time. They are distinguished by specific mindsets and practices across six leadership roles: corporate strategy, organizational alignment, team and processes, board engagement, external stakeholders, and personal effectiveness.

Major Takeaways for Business Leaders

1. Excellent CEOs redefine what winning means.
Rather than setting safe goals or benchmarking narrowly against familiar competitors, top CEOs raise the ambition. McKinsey describes this as adopting a “beat the odds” mindset and making bold strategic moves in the areas that matter most.

2. Resource allocation is a leadership differentiator.
Many companies make only small annual budget adjustments. Excellent CEOs take a cleaner-sheet approach, asking what resources should be shifted toward the company’s most important future priorities.

3. Talent should be matched to value-creating roles, not just hierarchy.
McKinsey emphasizes that many of the most important roles in an organization do not report directly to the CEO. Great CEOs identify the roles that create or protect the most value and ensure top talent is placed there.

4. Culture must be managed beyond engagement scores.
The authors argue that engagement surveys are useful but incomplete. Excellent CEOs look more deeply at organizational health, including innovation, role clarity, external orientation, and other cultural factors tied to execution and performance.

5. The best CEOs help boards help the company.
Excellent CEOs view the board as a strategic asset rather than mainly seeing it as a governance requirement or potential interference. They focus directors on future-facing issues and consider whether the board has the skills needed for the companyis direction.

6. Personal effectiveness is about energy, not just time.
Great CEOs focus on the work only they can do and structure their schedules around both productivity and energy. The article emphasizes the necessity for CEOs to avoid exhaustion, stay grounded, and build working norms that support long-term effectiveness.

Talking Points for Executives

A strong leadership team discussion can begin with this question: “Are we leading the company we have today or the company we need to become?”

This article is especially useful because it shifts the focus from abstract qualities of CEO effectiveness to observable practices. It asks leaders to examine whether the company’s future aligns with ambition, talent deployment, culture, board engagement, stakeholder management, and personal operating rhythms.

Another useful talking point: CEO excellence is a system, not a personality type. The best CEOs do not simply work harder or project more confidence. They create the conditions for bold strategy, aligned execution, high-performing teams, better governance, trusted stakeholder relationships, and sustainable personal performance.

Reflection Questions

1. Have we clearly redefined what “winning” means for the next era of our business?
2. Are we making bold enough moves, or mostly adjusting last year’s plan?
3. Which roles create or protect the most enterprise value, and are our strongest people in those roles?
4. Are we measuring true organizational health, or relying too heavily on engagement scores?
5. Does the board have the capabilities required for the company’s future strategy?
6. Are board discussions focused on forward-looking value creation?
7. What work should only the CEO do, and what should be delegated or redesigned?
8. What practices help the CEO stay grounded, energized, and effective?

Potential Action Items

Conduct a CEO excellence self-assessment across the six McKinsey dimensions: strategy, organization, team and processes, board, stakeholders, and personal effectiveness.

Run a bold-moves review to identify where the company needs larger shifts in capital, talent, M&A, innovation, productivity, or market positioning.

Create a critical roles map that identifies the roles most essential to value creation, regardless of reporting level, and compare those roles with the company’s strongest talent.

Move beyond employee engagement surveys by assessing broader organizational health: innovation speed, decision clarity, accountability, external orientation, collaboration, and execution discipline.

Reset the board agenda around future-facing questions, strategic inflection points, capability gaps, and long-term value creation.

Redesign the CEO’s calendar around the work only the CEO can do, including strategy, top-team effectiveness, board alignment, major stakeholders, culture, and personal renewal.

Similar Articles to Recommend

“The Mindsets and Practices of Excellent CEOs” — McKinsey
A foundational companion article that outlines the six CEO roles and 18 practices behind McKinsey’s CEO excellence research.

“What Makes a CEO ‘Exceptional’?” — McKinsey Quarterly
A related McKinsey article exploring the traits and performance patterns that distinguish exceptional CEOs.

“How New CEOs Can Manage for the Future” — McKinsey Podcast
A useful follow-up for incoming CEOs who need to set direction, build momentum, and avoid early-tenure traps.

“CEO Excellence: How Do Leaders Assess Their Own Performance?” — McKinsey
A practical complement that explores how CEOs assess themselves across the six CEO excellence dimensions and where many leaders see development gaps.

“The Myth of the CEO as Ultimate Decision Maker” — Harvard Business Review
A strong companion read on why CEOs should design better decision-making systems rather than become the bottleneck for every major decision.