Terri is a thought leader in Digital Journal’s Insight Forum (become a member).
There is a theory in longevity science that suggests you can predict how long someone will live by the strength of their legs.
It turns out the same idea applies to executive leadership.
It sounded strange to me at first, but then it began to make sense. Your heart and lungs are the engine, but your legs carry the load and the circulation. If the foundation fails, the system collapses. It’s the same reason boxing trainers say the legs are the first sign a fighter is in real trouble. Once you lose your legs, you’re finished.
This carries over perfectly to the C-suite. I’ve stopped being impressed by who gets hired. I’m much more impressed by, and interested in, who lasts.
Getting the role is a sprint. Remaining effective in it, year after year, is a marathon that requires a specific kind of structural strength. You need it to survive the hard miles of the everyday. It’s a wonder to see those “CEO marathoners” who wake up fresh-faced and do it again, while others buckle under the weight.
I’ve spent a lot of time looking for this secret to endurance. Leaders who last aren’t always the most charismatic or the ones with the most distinguished pedigrees. They are the ones who have two powerful pillars girding all the weight.
They have adaptability as one leg and practicality as the other.
High adaptation to systems
A common pattern in executives who struggle is that they arrive with a mandate and a rigid vision. They see what needs to change, move quickly, and treat the role as an assignment. They have a playbook and expect the organization to adapt to it.
But they underestimate the “living” nature of the company, its memory, its loyalty, its scar tissue, and the informal power structures that don’t appear on an org chart.
The leaders who last treat the role as an exercise in adaptable, practical stewardship. They adapt to the ecosystem. They understand how to work within the system they’ve stepped into, rather than trying to steamroll it.
One early signal is curiosity. The leaders who spend their first months asking questions about how decisions actually move through the organization, are the ones who will last. The ones who struggle believe they already know.
Dispassionate practicality as a point of view
I’ve watched the mercurial ones, the egotists, the “my-way-or-the-highway” shouters — the ones who grow sharper when challenged and retreat into their titles. I’ve watched the ones who disappear into an office when times get tough.
The long-distance leaders are those who can stay dispassionately practical, who can stay professional longer than most people. They have a high tolerance for friction because they are grounded in reality.
Their decisions aren’t made on emotion or ego. They are made on a rational basis that puts priorities into the right order. This doesn’t mean such a leader doesn’t have an ego, everyone does (and I’ll get into that), but these are the ones who have learned to turn energy into action that preserves their ability to perform day after day, year after year.
Confidence, ego, and effectiveness
Executive roles require immense confidence, but those who endure have a particular balance.
The leaders who exit early often overestimate the portability of their past success. They assume that what worked at ‘Company A ‘must work at ‘Company B,’ copy and pasting their prior playbook without recalibrating for the new climate.
Those who last are not preoccupied with being right, they are preoccupied with being effective. They ask better questions in month twelve than they did in month one. They are patient with culture, but impatient with drift. They address misalignment early, not because they like conflict, but because they know a single unresolved issue in a senior team will widen under pressure.
Load-bearing realities
It is rarely one dramatic explosion that ends a tenure.
More often, it’s a series of small deferrals. A hard conversation postponed, a performance issue rationalized, or a tension left to “settle itself.”
Gradually, the alignment erodes. The legs start to give. Then the board intervenes with a final blow.
Watching this over decades has changed how I think about hiring. I no longer ask only whether a candidate can do the job. I ask whether they can inhabit it and endure it. Can they shoulder the weight and still run with it every day? Can they lead without destabilizing the organization or themselves?
The leaders who last are not flawless. They make mistakes, learning hard lessons in public. But their foundation holds, and the legs don’t go in the final rounds.
Over the arc of an executive life, endurance matters more than brilliance. The leaders who last understand that the job is not just to win the first rounds, but to still be standing when the long fight of leadership really begins.
