If you are a CEO, aspire to become one, or serve on a board that appoints them, this book deserves your attention. The four authors, all senior partners at McKinsey, set out to write a hands-on guide for current and future CEOs. They identified three things CEOs really want: to learn from those who have truly excelled in the role, to absorb content that is prescriptive rather than merely descriptive, and to find a Goldilocks format, not too long but laden with insights. A CEO For All Seasons succeeds to a large extent in fulfilling these wishes. Only the closing chapter is too generic.
The book’s central metaphor states that a CEO’s tenure has four seasons: Spring (preparing for the role), Summer (starting strong), Fall (staying ahead), and Winter (sending it forward). What a CEO does in each season affects what happens in the next. This is not just a convenient structure; it reflects a truth I have written about extensively: leadership is transient, and the interaction between person, organization, challenge, and timing is what determines success.
A striking observation in the book is that all – yes, ALL – CEOs overestimate themselves. The authors report that regardless of tenure, CEOs score themselves higher than direct reports score them 100 percent of the time, and higher than boards score them 80 percent of the time. That begs for humility.
Also some other numbers are striking. According to the authors top-quintile CEOs create thirty times more economic value than the next three quintiles combined. And roughly 30 percent of what determines a sitting CEO’s success is driven by what they inherited from their predecessor.
Several insights ring particularly true. The authors argue that we tend to dramatize current events and that it is a mistake to believe we are experiencing unprecedented levels of change. We still can and need to learn lessons from the past. I share that conviction. As I have written, various aspects of leadership were important in the days of Alexander the Great and Steve Jobs, and will remain important for decades and possibly centuries to come.
The Spring chapter offers sharp advice for aspiring CEOs: don’t miss a step on the dance floor, deliver on your day job, but also climb onto a higher balcony to hone your view of the future. Gut-check your motivations. Ego is unlikely to be a sustainable motivator. You need to be driven by a deep care for the institution you have the privilege to lead. This aligns with what I see in practice: CEOs who see themselves as servant leaders, building their organizations with a view far beyond their own tenures, tend to deliver the greatest long-term impact.
Summer is about starting strong. The book captures something that many who have not been CEO underestimate: before, you had peers; now they are looking at you to make the call. As I noted in my review of CEO Excellence by three of the same authors, directors who advance to the top position often report that they thought they knew what it would be like, but are still surprised once they get there. The work can be excruciatingly repetitive, and people speak to you in your role, not as a person. They talk to the chair.
Fall addresses the middle years, where complacency is the real enemy. You are now the author of the organization’s status quo. The authors wisely advise CEOs to get perspectives from peers, to help one another with lessons that only CEOs really understand. That is precisely the philosophy behind ELP: leaders sharing their dilemmas in a safe, non-prescriptive environment.
Winter, the final season, is about leaving. The authors state clearly: the hardest part of the CEO role is leaving. When times are tough, you cannot; when things go great, you do not want to. Tenure for all large-company CEOs averages 7.3 years, while the highest-performing CEOs average 11.2 years. The book’s checklist for when to leave is useful: Do you still find fulfillment? Are you still learning? Are you blocking someone ready to step up? Are you staying primarily because you cannot imagine what comes next?
Leaders who achieve the most tend to be those who are the best at getting better. This book helps them do exactly that.
Carolyn DeWar, Scott Keller, Vikram Malhotra, Kurt Strovink. A CEO For All Seasons. Mastering the Cycles of Leadership. Scribner, 2025