The CEO Study:

 A Decade of Research Revealing What the World’s Most Effective Leaders Do Differently 

For more than ten years, Leaders on Purpose has led one of the most comprehensive research efforts into modern CEO leadership — studying senior executives of major multinational companies who are shaping the next era of global business. Conducted in collaboration with researchers from Harvard, the World Bank, the London School of Economics, and other leading institutions, this work provides rare access to how high-performing leaders think, decide, and operate under real-world pressure.

Unlike traditional leadership studies, this research follows CEOs across multiple years and multiple disruptions — from geopolitical shifts to supply-chain instability, climate-related pressures, and accelerated technological change. This longitudinal perspective reveals how the most forward-looking leaders consistently outperform by redesigning their business logic for a world defined by uncertainty.

The study highlights a clear pattern:
organizations led by future-fit CEOs are more adaptive, more resilient, and better able to create long-term value across their ecosystems — not by choosing between performance and impact, but by integrating strategy, culture, innovation, and societal relevance into a coherent whole.

These insights are helping senior leaders, boards, and decision-makers understand how companies are evolving to stay competitive amid rapid transformation. The findings illuminate:

• The emerging capabilities that distinguish high-impact leadership

• How executives align their organizations around long-term positioning

• The strategic shifts required to remain relevant in a more complex global environment

• The new expectations placed on business as a key actor in societal and planetary wellbeing

Our aim is to accelerate learning and provide leaders with a clear understanding of what it takes to succeed in an economy undergoing fundamental transition. This research offers a window into how the world’s most effective CEOs are redefining leadership for the decades ahead — and what it means for organizations striving to stay ahead of change.