The CEO role provides the opportunity to play a role in shaping organizational culture and comes with various advantages. However, the challenges and pressures associated with the position can also be hazardous to the individual's health, Callum Borchers argues in a Jan. 31 column in the The Wall Street Journal.
A Jan. 18 report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an executive coaching firm that examines CEO turnover in the U.S. each month, showed that 19 CEOs died in office in 2023, including one in December. Across the 29 industries and sectors measured by the firm, there were 1,914 CEO changes in 2023 — up 55% from 2022. This includes the 146 CEO changes reported by hospitals and health systems last year.
While the reasons for exits vary, from retirement to leaving for "new opportunities," Andrew Challenger, workplace expert and senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, partly attributes the number of exits to post-pandemic burnout felt by many chief executives, according to Mr. Borchers.
Healthcare executives aren't immune to this stress. One health system CEO told Becker's last year that unaddressed isolation and burnout could be contributing to executive turnover in the industry.
"We feel as leaders that we have to be confident, we have to walk into a room and we have to take command, we have to show that we know what we're doing, we have to have all the answers," Jeff Comer, PsyD, told Becker's. "And of course we can't; that's not possible. But that's kind of the story we tell ourselves. And when we have burnout, a lot of us executives feel shame because we don't feel strong. We feel that we're weak."
A 2021 National Bureau of Economic Research study cited by Mr. Borchers found that industry financial challenges — which healthcare has been facing for years — can reduce a CEO's life expectancy by 1.5 years.
Mr. Borchers points to examples across other industries, including JetBlue chief Robin Hayes, who will step down this month for unspecified health reasons. "The extraordinary challenges and pressure of this job have taken their toll," he said, according to Mr. Borchers.
To address stress and burnout, Dr. Comer recommended taking control of controllable factors such as thoughts, emotions and behaviors, as well as setting a four-hour window of daily productivity.
Read the full column from Mr. Borchers here.