River Insights

Developing Generations of CEOs

Exchanges: The Experiences of First-Time CEOs

The EXCHANGES report summarizes our study, which is based on in-depth conversations with 75 CEOs. Below is a summary of our findings and the advice of the CEOs who we interviewed.

The Founder’s Leadership Journey

What are the leadership qualities that enable founders to successfully scale their businesses? What are the typical phases of development founder-led businesses, and founders, experience?

CEOs Navigating in a Time Like No Other

The thinking and skillsets CEOs relied on pre-pandemic are not the same ones that will lead them to success while navigating the world we are in today. Agility, the ability to innovate and empathy are just some of the characteristics of CEOs who are successfully navigating this next normal.

Working With A CEO Coach

A sign of self-confidence by the CEO and a clear signal to the rest of the organization that the CEO is open to learning.

Value Destruction By The Unprepared

The Cost of Complacency is Rising. Be Prepared.

CEO Evaluation

Perfunctory and narrow approaches to CEO evaluations leave value on the table. Make CEO Evaluation a tool to advance and sustain the value of your company.

From Great Entrepreneur To Great Leader

Making the personal shift from being the entrepreneur who starts a business to the leader of a larger enterprise.

Multiply Yourself: How Indian Founders Learn to Let Go and Grow Their Business

When it comes to understanding the reasons why some founders succeed and others don’t, we believe that leadership is the difference all the time, every time.

High Energy in the Right Moments Can Inspire

For leaders, energy can be in short supply. Those leaders who can manage themselves, to maximize their moments of high-energy, will be at a great advantage.

Grilled on the Hill: 3 Lessons from CEOs in the Hot Seat

What lessons can CEOs learn from the recent high profile grillings of John Stumpf and other CEOs on Capitol Hill?

Catching up on Algebra: How Young CEOs Accelerate Their Learning

For young CEOs, being the expert does not guarantee you will be a great CEO. How do you catch-up?

Building a Sustainable Family-Owned Business

Family owned businesses contribute an estimated 70% to GDP but 65% of family wealth is lost by the 2nd generation. Owners must work to avoid this.

Applying the KISS Principle to Executive Development

How do you help time-strapped CEO succession candidates who can benefit from deep developmental insights? Employing the KISS principle can help.

Advice for Rising to the Challenge of CEO

An overview of our Exchanges16 "Expect the Unexpected" study. It explores the six key themes around the experiences of the first-time CEO.

Advice from 75 CEOs on Aligning Leadership

5 guiding principals for the new CEO to leverage the role, and power of creative expression, to align leaders. From The River Group LLC Currents blog.

Navigating a Perfect Storm: Notes from The Captains’ Logs

Hear from CEOs and Senior Business Leaders firsthand what they've done since early 2020 to build and sustain agile organizations that respond quickly to the many challenges at hand, while also setting themselves up for longer-term successes.

Emerging Stronger

Preparing for the future, while navigating the present: A challenge for any organization, but much more challenging during a global pandemic. Leaders must not only transform their companies, but do so differently than in the past. While the transformation playbook is similar, winning in the next normal requires a drastically different game plan.

Thriving with Your Remote/Hybrid Team

Pre-2020, many organizations were skeptical about the viability of remote work. Now, over a year into this "crash course," many organizations are reaping the benefits that a remote/hybrid team can provide.

How Your Company Can Beat the Post-Pandemic Odds

It's suggested that only 10 to 14 percent of organizations emerge stronger from crises. What steps can you take to make sure that your organization beats those odds?

Cracking the Code on Failed M&A Leadership

What Disney, Amazon and Exxon did that Omnicom, Lehman and Lucent didn’t.

Merger Integration – Day One – A CEO’s Tale

The Acquisition Closes. It Is Day One. You Are CEO Of The New Combined Entity. What Do You Do?

Continuous Conversations

The heart of performance management.

Leading Through Rapid Growth

A great problem to have?

The Little Book for the Performance Conversationalist

Performance is about people and improving performance is about how you, as the manager of your people, go about coaching, training, teaching, and showing your people how to improve.

The Importance of Redefining Values During Culture Change

Values of the company displayed all over the office is not an unusual sight. More often than not- that is exactly what they are.

Conquer Culture Change by Attacking This Challenge

Changing your culture? Here is a short checklist to reflect on before you begin the culture change process with some helpful tips to help facilitate the change.

Achieving the Promise of Transformational M&A Integration

Here are a few reminders for achieving sustained M&A integration success with the strategic and financial promise intended.

It’s All About Talent: Insights from Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For

Talent management Insights from Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For 2016.

Changing Your Performance Management? – Tips for the CHRO

Thinking about changing the performance management process in your organization? Here are some important things to keep in mind during the process.

The Rise of Conversational Leadership

Creating a culture where conversational leadership takes root requires a new type of leadership development.

5 Questions Boards Should Ask About Tax Inversions

Beware of the attractive tax-inversion option. Merger integration is hard enough to pull off under normal circumstances.

Good Plow, Wrong Field

Does your team provide value adding leadership on strategically important topics, or does it get in the way and/or cause collateral damage to morale, culture and engagement?

Build It And They Will Lead

There is a bizarre irony to benign neglect of executive team development. Since its members are such strong leaders, executive teams need direction, guidance, and clear rules of engagement even more than other teams.

Building a Better Executive Team

Measure the quality of dialogue as a proxy for the quality of decision-making.

A “New Normal” for the C-Suite: Learning Agile Leaders

What are CEOs looking for in the next generation of C-Suite leaders? And how to begin to develop those muscles on your team.

What Makes a Resilient Leader?

It's more than just a catchphrase. They're engaging and adaptable; supportive and self-aware. When challenges face your organization, resilient leaders are the ones you want on your team.

The New Normal of Leadership: Connecting Others in a Disconnected World

Ideas for leading remote teams during challenging times. No rocket science--just helpful reminders and useful techniques.

Leaders Developing Leaders

As stewards of the organization, it is the obligation of senior leaders to energetically lead the development of future leaders.

Rudeness Derails Leaders

It’s not just unpleasant.

The Five Seismic Shifts

Changing the leadership development landscape.

The Single Most Powerful Word in a Leader’s Vocabulary

Much has been written about leadership communication. Yet one word can help leaders become more effective and shift their mindset towards inclusivity.

The Nature of Leadership in the UAE

Creating a culture where conversational leadership takes root requires a new type of leadership development. Leadership pipeline.

Modern Leadership Skills in India’s Family-Owned Businesses

There is a need for modern leadership skills in India’s Family Owned Businesses leadership pipeline. Leadership development.

How to Become a Leader? Do Leadership Work.

A review of Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader, by Herminia Ibarra. Spend less time on introspection and more time learning to do the work that leaders do.

Don’t Leave Learning on the Table with This Simple Trick

Organizations are shifting focus away from formal to informal learning, with a goal of creating a learning culture. But what does that mean?

Do No Harm: What Senior Executives Can Learn from Doctors

Employee engagement and passion are some of the most sought-after goals of organizations today. How can we truly unleash the potential of our people?

Brain Implants for our Future Leadership?

What other learning capability factors will set high potentials apart in the future? Elon Musk recently mentioned there will be need for brain implants.

A Practical Example of Leading HiPos to Victory

Claudio Ranieri's positive, pragmatic and tactically astute leadership style was perfect for underachieving high potentials.

5 Reasons Why Performance Management Conversations Fail

Every year organizations invest thousands of man-hours in the annual performance review. Continuous conversations. Performance management. Team Conversational Norms Diagnostic.

5 Steps to Boost Your Leadership Bench

It is up to senior leaders to energetically lead the development of future leaders. Leadership pipeline development. Leadership development.

The Surprising Way to Develop Leadership Talent

If you’re responsible for developing leadership talent in your organization, you can accelerate leadership skills training by doing this one thing.

How to Orchestrate a Successful Company Transformation

The CEO strategically determines how a company needs to change. Here are 4 practices for CEOs to successfully design and orchestrate major transformations.

The Secret to Unlocking Organizational Agility

There is a fundamental flaw in most organizational redesign efforts. Learn the three secrets to unlocking success.

River Insights

Developing Generations of CEOs

Driving Growth & Transformation

Building Leadership Teams

Growing Enterprise Leaders

Strengthening Organizations

The River Group, LLC