Becoming and Being CEO: How Business Leaders Develop through Experience

We aimed to fill a gap in the leadership development literature by studying the experiences that CEOs found significant on the path toward as well as in office. If experience is key to leadership development, what do top executives consider important in their own experience? We present findings from interviews with 25 CEOs. The earliest experiences shaped their values on work and education. Experiences directly related to taking office were turnarounds and bold strategic initiatives. The two main developmental paths were staying long term in one organization and pursuing a continuously more proactive, self-initiated agenda or mastering a strategy by applying it in new contexts. Many leaders systematically took the initiative to make their experience developmental. We explore this approach to leader development through four case studies.