Stage 6 of 7

CXOs

At the top, honest feedback is the scarcest thing you have.

The CXO stage is the top table: chief executives and the leaders who report to them, running a function or a whole company. What changes is the feedback. Your influence is at its widest, every small habit is copied, and the people who could tell you what is going wrong have the most reason to stay polite.

The short answer

The biggest challenge for CXOs is that honest feedback dries up just as their influence peaks. People edit what they say to the person who decides their future, so small habits go unnoticed while the culture copies them. What helps is a private, regular way to check how you land, plus questions that make the truth easy to say.

Drafted with AI for Jay Sampat, Chief Mirror Holder · coach review pending

You’ll know these

The six tests

  1. 31The Echo ChamberLiveCXOs · How much truth actually reaches you
  2. 32Shadow 360LiveCXOs · The culture your behaviour creates, as your leadership team sees it
  3. 33Succession ReadyLiveCXOs · Whether a credible successor exists, and when
  4. 34Exec Team HealthLiveCXOs · How well your leadership team works together
  5. 35Calendar AuditLiveCXOs · Where your time goes compared with your stated priorities
  6. 36The Legacy QuestionLiveCXOs · What you want to be remembered for, and whether your week matches it

CXOs

Your words travel further at this level, and the replies come back thinner. The tools for this stage are built to close that gap, privately. All six are live, alongside The 42 Test.

How do you hear the truth when you are the most senior person in the room?

You make it cheap to say and visibly worth saying. Ask about one specific thing, not “any thoughts?”. Thank the first person who disagrees, in public. Then change something small and say why. People watch what happens to the first brave comment before they offer a second.

The Echo Chamber measures your truth gap: who brings you bad news, how you react and where you look outside your circle. Why employees don’t speak up to senior leaders explains the research.

What does your behaviour teach the organisation?

More than your strategy deck does. If you check every detail, your leaders learn to check every detail. If you cancel one-on-ones when things get busy, so will they. Shadow 360 shows your clearest signal and the one most likely misread, across mood, attention, what you praise and what you tolerate. How leaders influence culture without meaning to covers how it works.

Does your leadership team work as a team?

An executive team that never argues in the room is arguing somewhere else. Exec Team Health gives a bar for each of five dimensions: trust, debate, decisions that stick, shared ownership and results. How to build a high-performing leadership team explains what to change first.

Does your week match what you say matters?

Your calendar is your real strategy. Calendar Audit puts last week’s hours next to your top three priorities and suggests one change for next week, and how to do a time audit as a leader shows the sum by hand.

Who would run things if you stepped away tomorrow?

If no name comes to mind quickly, that is the answer. Succession Ready checks named successors, their development, your board’s view and your own readiness to let go; Bench Strength maps the names. How a CEO should plan their own succession covers the rest.

What do you want to be remembered for?

The Legacy Question turns five short answers into a one-paragraph legacy statement, with last week as its final line. Your words stay in your browser. What a leadership legacy statement is has a worked example.

Start with your own habits if you haven’t yet: The 42 Test gives you a Leader Code, free and with no sign-up.

Drafted with AI · coach review pending

From the Question Library

  1. How do leaders influence culture without meaning to?CXOs · 9 min read
  2. How do you build a high-performing leadership team?CXOs · 9 min read
  3. How do you do a time audit as a leader?CXOs · 9 min read
  4. How should a CEO plan their own succession?CXOs · 10 min read
  5. What is a leadership legacy statement?CXOs · 9 min read
  6. Why don’t employees speak up to senior leaders?CXOs · 9 min read

Questions people ask

Why do executives get less honest feedback?
Because the cost of honesty rises with the listener’s power. Telling the CEO their idea is weak feels risky, so people soften it, and the softening adds up over every layer between you and the work.
Is a 360 review enough for a CXO?
It helps, but a yearly 360 can turn into a ritual people answer carefully. A short, frequent check on one or two behaviours often tells you more than a long annual report.
Are the CXO tools free?
Yes. All six are live, free and need no sign-up, and your answers stay in your browser. Shadow 360 and Exec Team Health are built for your leadership team to answer too; team mode is coming, and for now you rate yourself.
What should a new CXO pay attention to first?
How decisions get made around you, and whether people disagree with you in the room or only afterwards. That one signal says a lot about the culture you are about to inherit or create.

In the last month, I changed my mind because of something a junior person said.

Drafted with AI · coach review pending