CEOs’ Blind Spots 2 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 1160

CEOs’ Blind Spots 2 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 1160

Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post 1160 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma    Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here.

Credit: Polina Tankilevich

Credit: Pranav Digwal

Preamble

These posts are inspired by McKinsey research. Link at the end.

The Mid-Tenure Blind Spot: Why Leaders Struggle to Renew Vision and Strategy

Leadership is often romanticized as a heroic journey: a bold CEO steps into a role, makes decisive moves, sets a vision, and rallies people behind a North Star. In the early years, this narrative often holds true. Many leaders, energized by fresh mandates, chart ambitious courses and deliver transformative results. But leadership is not just about beginnings, it is also about sustaining momentum over time.

It is in the middle years of a leader’s tenure that a dangerous blind spot often emerges: the gradual erosion of clarity, boldness, and openness to new ideas. Once the initial wave of bold strategies has played out, leaders may struggle to reset their vision. In the process, they prefer clinging to past successes while the environment shifts around them.

This blogpost explores why this mid-tenure blind spot occurs, how it affects both leaders and organizations, and what can be done to overcome it.

The Energy of the Early Years

When a leader steps into a role, particularly as CEO, there is often a surge of energy, urgency, and inspiration. The mandate for change is strong; boards, investors, employees, and even customers expect bold action. Leaders respond with fresh strategies; restructuring, new market entries, digital initiatives, or cultural resets.

In these early years, the North Star is clear: the leader has something to prove, the organization has something to gain, and momentum builds around a shared sense of transformation. Success often follows, reinforced by the novelty of change and the goodwill that new leaders typically enjoy.

The Middle-Year Drift

But over time, something shifts. The bold moves of the early years start to feel like established playbooks. What was once innovative becomes routine. The CEO, no longer under pressure to demonstrate quick wins, may lose some of the urgency and boldness that fueled the first phase of their leadership.

This is where the blind spot of vision drift emerges:

Loss of Clarity: Without new challenges, the original North Star fades. The company continues operating, but without a compelling long-term direction.

Attachment to Old Strategies: Success breeds complacency. Leaders and teams alike become attached to strategies that once worked, resisting the need to evolve.

Fear of Resetting: Pressing “reset” feels risky, especially when the old playbook is still producing acceptable, even if declining, results.

Closed Mindset: With tenure comes experience, but also a tendency to dismiss new ideas as impractical or untested.

This stagnation is particularly dangerous in today’s world, where technological disruption, market volatility, and shifting customer behaviors require constant adaptation.

Why Leaders Struggle to Press Reset

Psychological Anchoring: Leaders naturally anchor themselves to what has worked before. Success validates decisions, and it becomes difficult to imagine that the formula could become outdated.

Organizational Resistance: Employees, too, become comfortable with the strategies that brought success. Asking them to pivot feels like discarding hard-won progress.

Fear of Losing Legacy: Leaders worry that changing course will undermine their past achievements. They want to be remembered as the architect of success, not as someone who abandoned their own blueprint.

Diminished Urgency: Boards and stakeholders often give new CEOs the benefit of urgency in the early years. By the middle years, as performance stabilizes, there is less external pressure to take bold risks.

The Cost of Clinging to the Past

When leaders fail to refresh their vision, organizations risk stagnation. Signs of decline often start subtly: slower growth, reduced innovation, loss of market share to more agile competitors. Over time, these small cracks widen into serious vulnerabilities.

Classic examples exist across industries: Kodak clung to its film business long after digital photography had emerged. BlackBerry was slow to pivot from secure messaging devices to the smartphone era. Nokia underestimated the shift to software-driven ecosystems, sticking to its old strategies.

In each case, past success blinded leadership to future needs. The middle-year drift allowed rivals to capture the future.

The Challenge of Perspective

There is another critical issue: maintaining perspective and openness to new ideas. Leaders in their middle years often surround themselves with loyal teams who reinforce existing strategies. This echo chamber prevents fresh insights from breaking through.

Moreover, the pressure of day-to-day execution makes it harder for leaders to step back and reflect. Vision requires perspective, but perspective requires space, a commodity that busy executives often neglect.

How Leaders Can Overcome the Mid-Tenure Blind Spot

Revisit and Redefine the North Star

Every few years, leaders must ask: Does our vision still inspire? Does it reflect today’s realities and tomorrow’s opportunities? The North Star should evolve, not remain fixed in the past.

Build a Culture of Renewal

Encourage employees to question assumptions and bring forward new ideas. Innovation must be institutionalized, not left to the whims of leadership.

Seek External Input

Advisors, industry peers, and even competitors can provide perspective that insiders may lack. Boards should actively challenge CEOs to refresh their strategies.

Celebrate Experimentation

Not every reset needs to be a grand overhaul. Piloting small new initiatives can generate learning and momentum without destabilizing the core business.

Balance Legacy with Future Orientation

The best leaders honor the strategies that built success while having the courage to say: The world has changed, and so must we. Legacy should be a foundation, not a prison.

Guard Against Complacency

Metrics of success should not just measure financial outcomes but also innovation, customer relevance, and adaptability. These prevent organizations from resting on their laurels.

Lessons for Organizations and Boards

Boards of directors play a critical role in addressing this blind spot. They must hold CEOs accountable not only for quarterly performance but also for refreshing vision. Structured reviews, external benchmarking, and leadership development programs can help counteract the natural drift of the middle years.

Organizations, too, must resist the temptation to idolize past strategies. Culture must reward learning and renewal, not just past performance.

Sum Up

The middle years of leadership are often overlooked in favor of the drama of beginnings and endings. Yet, they may be the most consequential. It is here that leaders must summon the courage to renew vision, reset strategies, and remain open to new ideas. Great leadership is not about a single North Star that shines forever, it is about continually recalibrating the compass as the landscape changes. The leaders who succeed are those who see past their own blind spots, resist the comfort of old successes, and embrace the boldness of new beginnings, even in the middle of their journey.

Because in leadership, as in life, the most dangerous words are: “This is how we’ve always done it.”

Concluded.

Disclaimers: Pictures in these blogs are taken from free resources at Pexels, Pixabay, Unsplash, and Google. Credit is given where available. If a copyright claim is lodged, we shall remove the picture with appropriate regrets.

For most blogs, I research from several sources which are open to public. Their links are mentioned under references. There is no intent to infringe upon anyone’s copyrights. If, any claim is lodged, it will be acknowledged and recognized duly.

Link:

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/seeing-ceo-blind-spots?stcr=798248FAF7894947B6105FBD8EB75F4D&cid=mgp_cfas-eml-alt-mkq-mgp-glb--&hlkid=3bcc27ef57ea40bfa9f1349a052031d4&hctky=15999472&hdpid=09da9c7e-dbdf-4d66-9190-0d3019d55a6b