How the best CEOs find the next phase of growth

Oct. 23, 2025 - MIT Sloan Management Review

---

Top chief executives reveal what they do to drive change from within their organizations. Interviews with 83 top-performing CEOs show that the most effective leaders navigate strategic transitions by involving others in shaping the plan, cocreating strategy with their teams, activating multiple organizational levers, and adapting their own leadership style.

Between three and five years into their tenure, the best CEOs typically take what they’ve learned and, thinking like an outsider, create the next performance S-curve for their company. The concept of the S-curve is that for any strategy, there’s a period of slow initial progress as the strategy is formed and initiatives are launched. This is followed by a rapid ascent from the cumulative effect of initiatives coming to fruition, and then by a plateau once the value of the portfolio of strategic initiatives has largely been captured. Aligning and mobilizing the organization to drive toward the next level of performance isn’t easy.

Examples from JPMorgan, Bank of America, Adidas, and other businesses show how successful leaders avoid complacency and drive continuous transformation.

Read the full article here.