The CEO transition tightrope: How to signal change without undermining trust

Any diligent Financial Times reader will know full well that CEO tenures are shrinking and scrutiny is intensifying. According to BCG/Russell Reynolds data, the average tenure of outgoing CEOs in the first half of 2025 was 6.8 years, down from 7.7 years a year earlier. Meanwhile, for McKinsey & Co, new CEOs do not have a honeymoon period: whereas people in other roles may have six months or even a year to find their footing, a CEO will be expected to be ready from day one. 

During the transition, CEOs are therefore expected to quickly establish credibility and articulate their strategy. This is a pivotal moment for corporate affairs directors, who are responsible for advising the incoming CEO on reputation, credibility and building trust in their stewardship.

A range of scenarios come to mind. At one end of the spectrum, an internal successor may be appointed, and the corporate strategy remains broadly unchanged. The corporate affairs director’s priority will be to signal continuity and reassure stakeholders about stability.

But a smooth transition isn’t always the name of the game. At the other end of the spectrum, a new CEO has been appointed by the board to radically transform a business. This might mean turning around a failing company, poorly led by their predecessor, ending a cycle of excessive leverage and high-risk decision-making, or rebuilding a reputation tarnished in the media by a toxic culture.

The new CEO would, understandably, want to respond to the intense and immediate pressure from the board and key stakeholders, and focus on what needs to change, why and how. But this transition can be a delicate moment for corporate communicators - as well as advising the CEO, they are also responsible for safeguarding the reputation of the company itself and its long-term legacy. They have two interlinked masters: the CEO and the company itself. And long-term trust will be attached to the company. 

A key consideration will therefore be how to communicate the need for change without undermining the company's strengths. 

Communications teams will have spent years building credibility and honing messages about the quality of the company’s products and services. They know from experience what resonates with key audiences. Focusing on what is broken could inadvertently damage the assets which took years to build, as well as the parts of the company which aren’t broken. Long-term corporate clients, investors and business partners - themselves under pressure to perform - might understandably reconsider their commitment to the firm.

Imagine a CEO signalling a newly found focus on growth. This could be (mis)interpreted as a signal that the company has fallen behind its competitors, even become a dinosaur, encouraging short-term investors to seek out firms already able to grasp growth drivers and gain market share, while the company is busy sorting itself out.

Announcing a restructuring plan with a much-discussed cost-cutting programme to demonstrate financial discipline? Worded too strongly, without acknowledgment of the human and business impact departing colleagues have made, and the trade-off could be an internal communications disaster, with the company’s highest performers fleeing. 

Communicating details about a toxic culture, and how the CEO will address abusive behaviour? This could lead to social media-driven boycott calls from customers unwilling to endorse this culture. Viral content can perversely focus on the big headlines and the controversy, and blatantly ignore the second part of the message, with the proposed cure.  

Another consideration, this time forward looking, arises if attention shifts too much towards the personality of the incoming CEO.

Corporate narrative will typically include compelling individual storytelling to bring a human touch. But there is a trade-off here as well. The more the CEO is portrayed as the solution, and their vision and leadership style celebrated, the more vulnerable the company becomes when they eventually leave. The leadership team should remain mindful of continuity and the wider executive bench, to avoid planting the seeds of future problems by associating the success of the company too strongly with the CEO. 

Strategically aligning the CEO and the company's reputation is a balancing act - the need for change must be acknowledged whilst maintaining trust in the company's core capabilities and protecting its legacy. Recent coverage indicates it is getting tougher. The strategic focus for corporate affairs directors might be the sequencing of priorities and a careful evaluation of message timing.