It has been said that the only constant in the world today is change.  Are you leading change in your company, or is your company being led by change? 
 
What keeps you awake at night?
 
Downward pressure on prices?
Changes in type and level of competition?
Shortages of key skills?
Developing leadership skills?
Changing customer requirements and customer loyalty?
Keeping costs down?
Getting employees to be more productive and effective?
Increasing flexibility & speed?
Achieving growth objectives?
Achieving control and your company's potential?
Retaining key talent?
Creating a productive culture?

Regardless of the type or size of your company, CEOs face a number of challenges from the change happening inside and outside their companies.  As change agents, CEOs must be able to effectively mobilize their employees and resources to achieve positive results. This requires CEOs to be proactive.  Are your business practices proactive or reactive?
 
Today, CEOs appear to be more reactive to the numerous changes occurring all around them.  But how can CEOs rise to the challenge of directing their companies through change while being reactive?   Clearly, this is a serious management limitation.  What is becoming more apparent is that the current level of management knowledge and practice is being rapidly outstripped by the scope, speed, and complexity of change taking place inside and outside
organizations. 
 
CEOs possess a unique position and perspective. They alone are ultimately accountable for improving their organization’s performance and results. In addition, they must fill another distinct role. CEOs are the chief practitioners when it comes to the selection and application of organization-wide management practices.
 
Most CEOs sense something different about what is going on with their expanding responsibilities, including the challenging process of leading their organization.  A new system of management is needed - one that is more comprehensive and more anticipatory in terms of bringing forth change and improving performance at all levels in an organization.
 
The predicament facing CEOs and their organizations revolves around three distinct yet interrelated conclusions:
 
CEO Insight and Courage to Change:  CEOs must look inward and reflect on how they can best lead and manage organizations in this new era. The nature and work CEOs perform is changing as well, and it will continue to change in new and dramatic ways. 
 
The Nature and the Predicament: In this new era of unpredictability and moral accountability, CEOs should step back and assess their own management methods, values and leadership behaviors now required for themselves and their organizations.
 
Need for Higher-level Management Knowledge and Methodology: Organization-wide management knowledge and practice must be developed and applied by CEOs and executives.  Higher level management knowledge must be developed in the context of a more comprehensive, people-oriented framework. 
 
This material was adapted from the book “The CEO Challenge
- A New Paradigm for Delivering Sustainable Results.”