Strategy in the space between CEOs

There is a strange moment inside organisations when one CEO is leaving and the next has not yet arrived.

On paper, nothing changes. The strategy is still in place, the board wants progress, and the business still has customers to serve. But beneath the surface, uncertainty starts to creep in. 

 How much should move forward? What should be paused? Which decisions are safe to make, and which ones risk boxing in the next leader before they have even started?


This was the heart of our latest Strategy Circle discussion.


The challenge was not whether the organisation had a strategy. It did. The harder question was whether that strategy could stay credible while the leadership, cost base and external environment were all shifting at once.


That feels like the reality many strategy leaders are now operating in. PwC’s latest global CEO survey found that only 30% of CEOs are strongly confident in revenue growth over the next 12 months. At the same time, Gartner has reported that 80% of CEOs believe AI will force major overhauls of operational capability. Deloitte’s 2026 Human Capital Trends research found that only 27% of organisations believe they manage change effectively.


In other words, strategy leaders are being asked to maintain direction in environments where confidence is lower, operating models are under pressure, and change fatigue is becoming a serious execution risk.


One of the strongest themes from the discussion was the importance of optionality.


During a CEO transition, the temptation is often to either freeze completely or push ahead as though nothing has changed. Neither is particularly useful. Freezing creates drift. Pushing too hard can create legacy decisions that the incoming CEO is forced to inherit.


The more useful approach is to create options. That means building scenario papers. Mapping cost levers. Separating no-regret moves from decisions that should wait. Keeping contracts flexible. Documenting the assumptions behind each major choice. Not so strategy leaders can predict the future perfectly, but because they need to make sure the organisation is not trapped by decisions made in a moment of uncertainty.


The group also talked about the importance of board engagement. In a transition period, the board becomes one of the few sources of continuity. But that only helps if the relationship is active, not passive. Strategy leaders need to bring the board into the real trade-offs early: cost pressure, risk appetite, customer impact, timing, and what should or should not be decided before the next CEO arrives.


This is where the role becomes much less about producing a strategy document and much more about governance, influence and judgement.

The other theme that stood out was cost. The organisation in question was facing a rising cost base, with pressure from technology, regulation and upcoming contract renewals. That is not an abstract strategy problem. It is the sort of pressure that slowly narrows strategic choice until the only options left are reactive ones.


The practical insight here was that cost management should not sit outside strategy. It has to be part of the strategic roadmap itself.


Too often, organisations build ambitious plans and then treat cost pressure as a finance problem that appears later. But in the current environment, the affordability of the strategy is the strategy. If the roadmap cannot survive rising operating costs, regulatory demands or slower growth, then it needs to be reworked before the gap becomes impossible to bridge.


Perhaps the most human part of the discussion was around the role of the strategy leader.


In moments like this, it is easy for the CSO or strategy executive to quietly take on too much. They can become the person trying to protect the existing strategy, prepare the board, support the outgoing CEO, anticipate the incoming CEO, align the CFO, reassure the organisation and somehow hold the whole thing together.


But the role is not to carry the entire transition but, to bring clarity.


To provide options and document decisions. To surface risks and build coalitions. To make sure the right conversations happen before the organisation sleepwalks into commitments it may later regret.

The best strategy leaders are not just the people with the cleanest answers. They are the people who can help the organisation think clearly when the answer is not yet obvious.


And that may be the real lesson from this month’s discussion.


Strategy continuity does not mean refusing to change course. It means protecting the integrity of the decision-making process while the organisation moves through uncertainty.


Sometimes that means accelerating. Sometimes it means pausing. Sometimes it means giving the next CEO enough space to shape the strategy without allowing the organisation to drift in the meantime.


That is a difficult balance. But it is also where the strategy function earns its credibility.