Page 58 - Harvard Business Review, November-December 2018

Stability Amid Turmoil

by Adi Ignatius

FROM THE NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2018 ISSUE

ne of the most striking things about this year’s list of the best-performing CEOs is how
consistent it is with last year’s. Fully 70% of the leaders in our 2018 ranking are

Oreturnees. That stability is reflected in the average tenure of the CEOs—16 years,

compared with 7.2 years for S&P 500 CEOs in 2017. These are extraordinarily turbulent times,

and the longevity of our top 100 is remarkable.

The CEOs on our list have prospered even as the global business environment has gotten more

challenging. Escalating trade tensions only add to the complexities of digitization, disruption,
and shifting consumer expectations. Of course, the trends cut both ways: The forces that kept

Pablo Isla of Inditex (parent of fast-fashion leader Zara) atop our ranking are the same ones that

weakened industry mainstays such as L Brands, whose leader, Leslie Wexner, fell off our list this

year.

Chief executives are also dealing with rising dissension on all sides. Activist investors are

routinely forcing their hands, and workers are demanding more say in how their companies are
run—as staffers at Google did when they objected loudly to developing a censored version of the

search engine for China. And CEOs themselves are increasingly willing to take a stand on hot-

button issues such as gun control and gay rights.

Leading a company has never been easy, but these days it just seems harder than ever before.
Piloting a business to real success year after year is an undeniably impressive feat.

A version of this article appeared in the November–December 2018 issue (p.8) of Harvard Business Review.

Adi Ignatius is the editor in chief of Harvard Business Review.