The Genuine Responsibilities of the CEO

A CEO must pull many levers, but not all are equally relevant. Based on hundreds of interviews they conducted with senior executives, the authors identify four main priorities for general management, corresponding with four primary tasks. They caution, however, that executives must understand and manage them all as an inseparable whole of interdependent, highly dynamic elements. They also emphasize that CEOs need to be disciplined in their decision-making, innovative in their work and responsible for their people. Ethics must be understood as an integral part of managerial duty and not as a last-minute add-on, as so many companies do with their corporate social responsibility programs.