Like the seasons of the year, the CEO journey has four stages: preparing for the role, transitioning into the role, navigating the middle years, and transitioning out of the role. Each stage brings a unique set of opportunities and challenges, just as spring, summer, fall, and winter do. Viewed from an institutional level, each four-stage journey is part of a continuous cycle of return as one CEO’s “winter” dovetails with another’s “spring.”

While this book draws on the same body of research as CEO Excellence, it fills the void in a different yet related way. If CEO Excellence is a reference book akin to an encyclopedia that contains timeless information related to all aspects of the role, The Four Seasons of a CEO takes a more timely lens by speaking to what matters most at each stage of the journey—much like a farmer’s almanac that provides climate information and seasonal suggestions for its readers in ways that allow them to optimize annual cycles.