CEO Readiness | Dr Wayne Nelson, Senior Partner at Deloitte Consulting and Strategy Consulting Leader EMEA at Monitor Deloitte. Head and Founding Dean of the Deloitte Executive Leadership Institute.

CEO appointments are an important responsibility of Boards. Accordingly, Boards need to ensure they have adequate qualified internal and external candidates for successful CEO selection processes. Creating CEO readiness for internal candidates is as important as working with external search advisors.In this podcast, Dr Sabine Dembkowski, Founder and Managing Partner of Better Boards discusses CEO readiness with Dr Wayne Nelson, Senior Partner at Deloitte Consulting and Strategy Consulting Leader Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at Monitor Deloitte. He is also Head and Founding Dean of the Deloitte Executive Leadership Institute. "Nature and nurture both play a role in the development of leaders"Wayne starts by explaining that, of course, both nature and nurture play a role in the development of leaders. Wayne found that roughly 30% of participants are 'accidental CEOs.' These leaders stumbled into the CEO role by being in the right place at the right time, and happen to have the required skills and experiences. These leaders, however, had no plans to become CEO. However, most CEOs intentionally sought out the role. Wayne feels this suggests that leaders can do intentional, deliberate things to increase their readiness and chances of moving into a CEO role.  "The CEO role is a very challenging one that comes with huge personal sacrifices"Wayne suggests that the CEO role often brings isolation and loneliness, and requires a thick skin and an ability to be resilient.   Candidates need to realise this and be sure they really want the job and are willing to make sacrifices. "We're seeing a whole new generation of executives"Wayne explains that company products have well-defined attributes and values, communicated with great care to ensure clarity and consistency. Executives in the market for a CEO role also need to define a brand for themselves - simple, relevant, and authentic. They need to communicate this consistently, over and over again, and new social media channels are ideal for this. "The best CEO hires are fit for circumstance"Wayne explains that 'fit for circumstance' means that the best CEO hires can explicitly connect the company's circumstances with an attractive future vision – and then connect these to their own experiences, capabilities, potential, and motivation. The four key elements defining fit for circumstance are (1) The situation, expectations and vision for the company. (2) The type of leader the company needs. (3) The candidate's capabilities, experiences, and potential. (4) The candidate's motivation and authentic self. The best CEO hires fulfill all four."Board members need to think about what type of leader the company needs explicitly"Wayne has seen that very experienced board members have categories of CEO types in their minds that they can easily match with the current situation of the company. This needs to be discussed early on, however, not in the heat of the moment and not during recruitment when a selection is being made.   He believes that succession planning needs to be done early, and thus for a CEO role, internal candidates should be developed, not necessarily always looking externally via search agencies.The three top takeaways from our conversation are:1.      The best CEO candidates can articulate their "fit for circumstance" and make a real effort to hone their "story."2.     Board members can use the "fit for circumstance" concept to guide their CEO candidate evaluations and selections.3.     Boards benefit from having a broad slate of viable internal and external candidates. It makes sense to build CEO readiness of internal candidates deliberately.