What Defines Exceptional CEOs?

When you think about an exceptional CEO, what comes to mind first? Is it charisma? Ruthless efficiency?

Maybe a big personality that dominates every room they walk into?

Those might be common traits we associate with CEOs, but they don’t quite capture what sets the great ones apart. The truth is that exceptional CEOs share a deeper set of qualities—things that don’t always appear on the surface but make all the difference over time. It’s less about showmanship and more about substance.

So, let’s take a closer look at what truly defines an exceptional CEO, using some real-world examples.

1. They Have a Profound Understanding of the “Why”

Exceptional CEOs have an unshakable grasp of why their company exists. They don’t just have a surface-level answer like “we sell products” but a deeply embedded mission that fuels everything. And they never, ever lose sight of it.

Take Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks, as an example.

He joined Starbucks in 1982 when it was a small Seattle-based company that sold only high-quality coffee beans for home brewing.

Schultz, who had a background in retail and had worked at companies like Xerox, saw an opportunity to turn Starbucks into something bigger: a coffeehouse culture that would offer premium coffee drinks in a third place (somewhere between home and work).

He became CEO in 1987 after buying the company from its founders, and under his leadership, Starbucks grew from a small local coffee roaster into a global coffeehouse empire.

What sets Howard Schultz apart is his vision for what Starbucks could represent.

Schultz didn’t just want to sell coffee; he wanted to create an experience.

He envisioned Starbucks as a place where people could come together, relax, and feel part of a community in a welcoming, inclusive, and comfortable environment.

It was the key element that turned Starbucks into a cultural phenomenon.

Howard Schultz clearly understood his “why,” and his leadership transformed Starbucks from a coffee retailer into a premium, socially responsible lifestyle brand.

He emphasised the importance of not just selling coffee but also providing an emotional experience that customers could connect with.

Even during tough financial times, when it would’ve been easy to cut corners, Schultz stayed fiercely loyal to the mission. He closed stores to retrain baristas on how to make better espresso.

Was it expensive? Absolutely. However, it reinforced why Starbucks existed in the first place, and customers noticed.

The “why” acts like a compass in the storm. Exceptional CEOs don’t just know it; they live it.

2. They Excel at Asking Great Questions

A lot of people think leadership is about having the answers. But actually, it’s more about asking the right questions.

Look at Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, as an example.

When Satya Nadella took over as the CEO of Microsoft in 2014, the company was transitioning. Under the leadership of Steve Ballmer, Microsoft had struggled to pivot from its dominance in traditional software (mainly Windows and Office) to the rapidly evolving tech landscape focused on cloud computing, mobile, and AI.

The company was big, powerful, and profitable, but Microsoft was also known for its internal silos, lack of innovation in some areas, and struggles with changing tech paradigms.

In essence, Microsoft was experiencing a lot of internal and external chaos.

Instead of panicking or trying to radically overhaul the entire company, Nadella embraced Microsoft’s complexity and reframed it as an opportunity to transform its culture and product focus.

One of his first big moves was changing Microsoft’s culture.

However, to do so, he didn’t walk in and declare he had all the answers. Instead, he simply asked, “How can we empower every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more?”

That simple but compelling question ultimately reframed Microsoft’s mission and led to its cultural and financial turnaround.

Nadella wanted to move the company from a “know-it-all” culture to a “learn-it-all” culture and understood that the key was developing a propensity to ask powerful questions.

Consequently, he encouraged employees to be curious, experiment, and embrace failure as a learning experience. It was a significant shift, given that Microsoft’s past success had been built on a more traditional, hierarchical, and often rigid approach.

However, the results of Nadella’s leadership are clear. Microsoft’s stock price soared after Nadella’s appointment.

By his fifth anniversary as CEO in 2019, the company had nearly tripled in value. His leadership helped increase Microsoft’s market capitalisation by over $800 billion after he took the reins.

The transformation in culture has also been palpable. Microsoft is now seen as one of the tech industry's most innovative and inclusive companies.

Employees frequently cite Nadella’s leadership as one of the key reasons behind this shift.

Exceptional CEOs aren’t the most intelligent people in the room because they know everything; they’re the smartest because they know what questions to ask to unlock new thinking.

3. They Have Zero Tolerance for Ethical Fading

“Ethical fading” occurs when people slowly, almost imperceptibly, start compromising on what’s right to achieve short-term goals.

Exceptional CEOs refuse to let that happen.

Consider Paul Polman, who became CEO of Unilever in 2009. At the time, the company was already a massive multinational corporation, with popular brands like Dove, Hellmann’s, Lipton, and Ben & Jerry’s.

While Unilever was profitable, it, like many other large companies at the time, was primarily focused on short-term financial results driven by quarterly earnings reports and shareholder expectations.

However, Polman quickly recognised that this traditional focus on short-term profit wasn’t sustainable for Unilever and the planet. He understood that long-term business success depended on addressing the growing concerns about environmental sustainability, social responsibility, and global inequality.

One of his most significant and controversial moves was ceasing to issue quarterly earnings guidance.

It was a radical shift in how investors viewed the company. In a world obsessed with short-term financial performance, Polman’s decision to focus on long-term value creation was both a risk and a bold statement of his values.

Instead of prioritising shareholders' immediate demands and stock price fluctuations, Polman pushed Unilever to adopt a broader, more integrated view of success. This included considering the company’s impact on society and the environment as part of its bottom line.

Polman launched the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan in 2010, which outlined ambitious targets for reducing the company’s environmental footprint while increasing its social impact.

This sustainability agenda wasn’t just about philanthropy or corporate social responsibility but was integrated into Unilever’s core business strategy. He argued that creating value for society and the environment would ultimately lead to long-term business success by attracting conscientious consumers, improving supply chain resilience, and future-proofing Unilever’s products.

As he pushed forward with this agenda, he had to navigate several complexities and challenges, such as:

Balancing short-term financial pressures with long-term sustainability goals: As a publicly traded company, Unilever faced pressure from investors who were often more focused on immediate returns.

Polman had to work hard to shift their mindset toward valuing long-term gains over quarterly profits, such as brand loyalty, employee satisfaction, and environmental stewardship.

Dealing with scepticism: Many critics initially questioned whether focusing on sustainability and ethics could lead to financial growth.

The idea of “purpose-driven capitalism” was still relatively new. Polman had to convince stakeholders that focusing on social and environmental impact could deliver better business results in the long run.

Supply Chain Complexity: With operations in more than 190 countries and a vast range of products, managing sustainability at scale was complex.

Polman’s team had to work with thousands of suppliers, many of which were in developing countries with varying environmental standards and social practices.

Polman implemented programs to improve the sustainability of Unilever’s supply chain, such as working with smallholder farmers to improve their yields while making their operations more eco-friendly.

Global Inequality and Social Impact: Unilever’s focus wasn’t just on environmental sustainability but also on social equity.

Polman prioritised the well-being of people in the

company’s supply chain, including workers and consumers. He spearheaded efforts to improve nutrition, reduce plastic waste, and fight inequality, ensuring Unilever’s operations had a positive social impact.

His bold leadership paid off in several important ways.

Between 2010 and 2018, Unilever’s sales grew by more than 30%, with much of that growth coming from its sustainable product lines.

During Polman’s tenure, Unilever faced several external challenges—economic crises, commodity price fluctuations, and changes in consumer behaviour.

However, Unilever’s sustainability initiatives helped the company maintain brand loyalty and resilience. Consumers increasingly supported companies that were transparent and committed to doing good.

While Unilever was initially criticised for focusing on long-term strategies over short-term earnings, the company’s stock price increased by more than 150% during Polman’s tenure.

This demonstrated that investing in sustainability and corporate responsibility didn’t have to come at the expense of financial performance; it could enhance long-term value.

Under Polman’s leadership, Unilever became a global leader in sustainability.

Organisations like the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations consistently ranked it among the most responsible companies in the world.

Polman didn’t tolerate ethical compromises. Instead, he built values into the business model itself, and the company thrived.

The best CEOs know that integrity isn’t a “nice to have”; it’s the foundation of trust, which is everything.

4. They Relentlessly Manage Time and Focus on the 20% that Matters

A brutal truth in business is that 80% of outcomes generally come from 20% of activities. Exceptional CEOs are masters at identifying and obsessing over that 20%.

Warren Buffett, though better known as an investor, is also Berkshire Hathaway's CEO and a perfect example of this.

Buffett is famous for saying, “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”

He spends the majority of his time thinking and reading, activities that seem passive but are directly related to making billion-dollar decisions.

The best CEOs aren’t just busy; they’re ruthlessly focused. They don’t waste time on things that don’t move the needle.

5. Selecting and Maintaining an Excellent Executive Team

No one, no matter how brilliant, can scale a company alone. Exceptional CEOs know that their success depends on the strength of their executive team.

For all his intense personality quirks, Jeff Bezos was relentless about hiring and promoting top talent at Amazon.

He often said that his job was to make only a few high-quality decisions a day, and that was possible only because he surrounded himself with brilliant people who could be trusted to run significant parts of the company.

Bezos also created Amazon’s famous “bar raiser” program, where interviewers were explicitly tasked with ensuring that every new hire was better than the average employee.

Great CEOs don’t just build teams; they build self-sustaining cultures of excellence.

6. They Can Hold Complexity Without Collapsing Under the Weight of It

Leadership isn’t just about inspiring speeches and confident handshakes. It’s about standing calmly in the middle of chaos, holding multiple conflicting realities, and finding a way forward.

Take Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe, as an example.

Anne Wojcicki co-founded 23andMe in 2006 with a bold idea: to make personal genomics accessible to the public. In other words, she wanted to directly put powerful health and ancestry information into people’s hands, not lock it away in academic labs or hospitals.

It may sound straightforward today, but it was uncharted territory back then. And it meant navigating a crazy level of complexity, like:

Scientific complexity: Building a consumer DNA testing product requires deep scientific rigour, genetic accuracy, and the ability to explain complicated information in a way that regular people can understand.

Regulatory complexity: In 2013, the FDA essentially shut 23andMe down, ordering them to stop selling their health-related reports because they weren’t adequately cleared as a medical device.

Most startups would have collapsed under that kind of blow.

Instead, Wojcicki led the company through a long, painstaking regulatory approval process, eventually becoming the first direct-to-consumer genetics test to get full FDA approval.

Ethical and privacy concerns: Handling people’s genetic information is a minefield. There are privacy risks, data ownership issues, and potential for misuse.

Wojcicki had to build trust frameworks while still pushing innovation forward. But what makes her exemplary is that she didn’t oversimplify the challenges.

Where others might have panicked or tried to bulldoze their way through red tape, Wojcicki stayed steady. She saw all the layers: the science, the regulations, the ethics, the customer education, and she managed them simultaneously.

She showed resilience. A major regulatory shutdown could have sunk 23andMe forever. Instead, she treated it as a strategic reset.

Exceptional CEOs don’t demand simple answers in a complex world. They carry complexity. They can see the interconnectedness of issues and resist the urge to oversimplify to make themselves feel better.

That ability to sit with discomfort, to think in paradoxes, is rare, and it’s a hallmark of real leadership.

7. They Choose to See Possibility Where Others See Chaos

When the world looks like it’s falling apart, exceptional CEOs don’t just hunker down. They lean in and look for opportunities.

A good example is Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, it looked like Airbnb was finished. Travel basically evaporated overnight, and bookings dropped by around 80%. People thought the entire business model (staying in strangers’ homes) would collapse in a world obsessed with hygiene and distancing.

Chaos, right?

But Chesky didn’t sit back and panic. Instead, he pivoted hard. While international travel was dead, he realised people still craved local escapes — safe, socially distanced getaways nearby.

So, he reoriented Airbnb’s entire platform toward local travel — road trips, rural stays, and long-term rentals for remote workers.

He launched Online Experiences, offering virtual cooking classes and guided tours, tapping into Airbnb’s strengths even when no one could travel.

He also made painful but necessary moves quickly. He laid off about 25% of Airbnb’s staff but did so with unusually high transparency and humanity, which preserved the company’s reputation.

Instead of collapsing under the chaos, Chesky reframed the crisis. He saw that the definition of “travel” was changing, and if Airbnb adapted fast enough, it could survive and thrive.

The result was that Airbnb recovered faster than almost anyone expected and went public in December 2020 with one of the biggest IPOs of the year.

Exceptional CEOs don’t just survive chaos; they reframe it. They see possibility in the rubble, and that mindset infects their entire organisation.

The Common Thread

If you look closely at all these traits, there’s a common thread: a bias toward depth over flash.

Exceptional CEOs are not just charismatic but profoundly anchored in mission, values, focus, people, and resilience. They don’t react emotionally to chaos; they navigate it thoughtfully.

They don’t need to be loud. They don’t need to be perfect. But they must be deeply intentional.

And perhaps most importantly, they must be willing to grow. Being an exceptional CEO isn’t a static title you earn once and wear forever. It’s a moving target, a daily practice, a constant evolution.

The business world is littered with examples of CEOs who started strong but lost their way because they forgot that leadership is earned daily, not just through results but through who you are and what you stand for.

In the end, being an exceptional CEO is about choices:

• Protecting the “why” even when short-term profits are tempting.

• Choosing to ask better questions rather than pretending to have all the answers.

• Choosing to build and trust an excellent team rather than hoarding power.

• Choosing integrity when nobody’s watching.

• Choosing focus over frenzy.

• Choosing complexity over convenient narratives.

• Choosing possibility over fear.

Those choices made day in and day out separate the merely good from the truly great.

And the world needs more of the truly great.

Until next time, may you appreciate the exceptional CEOs out there. It isn’t easy.

Dion Le Roux

References

1. Bezos, J. (n.d.). Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s “Bar Raiser” hiring strategy. Various interviews and shareholder letters.

2. Buffett, W. (n.d.). Warren Buffett on time management and focus. Interviews, shareholder letters, and public talks.

3. Nadella, S. (2017). Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone. Harper Business.

4. Polman, P. (n.d.). Paul Polman’s leadership at Unilever. Interviews, speeches, and sustainability initiatives.

5. Schultz, H. (2011). Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul. Rodale Books.

6. Wojcicki, A. (n.d.). Anne Wojcicki and 23andMe’s leadership through complexity. Interviews and public commentary.