5 Mindsets Top CEOs Are Adopting in 2025 to Supercharge Growth
Summary: In 2025, high-performing CEOs are pivoting from “efficiency at all costs” to a bolder, experiment-driven playbook.
Five shared mindsets stand out: (1) Make courage your core, (2) Embrace AI-fuelled creative destruction, (3) Build a vibrant data environment, (4) Ignore FOMO; lean into ROI, and (5) Borrow the talent you can’t buy.
Each mindset below includes what the latest research says, common traps, and practical moves you can start this quarter.
Why these mindsets now
CEOs are unusually optimistic about the next 12 months while still worrying about long-term viability: nearly 60% expect global growth to improve, yet 4 in 10 fear their company won’t be viable in 10 years without reinvention. That tension is pushing leaders to move faster and more decisively. PwC
At the same time, leaders say AI now redefines competitive advantage, with the best performers expecting transformational impact in the next 24 months. Many still struggle to get results beyond cost savings—proof that mindset and execution matter as much as tooling. IBM
Trust is a strategic asset: Edelman’s 2025 Trust Barometer shows persistent trust gaps and a “grievance” dynamic; customers reward dependable, transparent brands while skepticism toward CEOs is rising. Edelman+1
Mindset 1: Make courage your core
What it means: Anchor bold moves in a strong organizational “core” (clear strategy, empowered leaders, shared data), so you can take smart risks without eroding customer trust. Top CEOs are explicit about courage and empowerment—69% tie success to a broad bench of leaders with authority to decide, and 65% say trust will impact success more than feature arms races. IBM
Common traps
Treating courage as speed alone (e.g., “move fast and break things”). In 2025, only 37% of CEOs believe it’s better to be fast and wrong than right and slow on tech adoption. IBM
Over-optimizing budgets and architectures for today at the expense of adaptability. IBM
Moves for your next 90 days
Clarify non-negotiables (mission, trust standards, value drivers). Make them the lens for green-lighting “courageous bets.” IBM
Distribute authority: Define 5–10 pivotal decisions that should move to the edge (closest to customers) and give those leaders real guardrails and data. McKinsey & Company
Scenario-budgeting cadence: Replace annual “frozen” budgets with rolling funding windows for experiments; pre-agree triggers for doubling down or killing. 59% of CEOs report budgeting gridlock during turbulence—fix that plumbing first. IBM
Metrics to watch: decision cycle time, % of spend reallocated intra-year, NPS/CSAT trend during change windows, % of frontline decisions made within guardrails (no escalation). PwC finds active reallocation of people correlates with higher margins. PwC
Mindset 2: Embrace AI-fuelled creative destruction
What it means: Don’t just bolt AI onto existing processes—rethink products, operating models, and measures of success. 68% of CEOs say AI is changing what they consider core; 61% see competitive advantage hinging on who has the most advanced gen-AI. Yet only 52% report value beyond cost reduction so far. IBM
Common traps
“Tooling first, strategy later”: rushing pilots without a clear growth question. McKinsey & Company
Under-investing in model choice, data quality, and policy (safety, IP, privacy). McKinsey & Company
Moves for your next 90 days
Reframe the question: Which revenue moments (conversion, expansion, retention) could an “agentic AI” coworker change by 10–30%? Prioritize 2–3 bets. McKinsey & Company
Pick the right model for the job (not always the biggest), and design for closed-loop learning (human feedback, outcome tracking). IBM
Governance you’ll actually use: lightweight approval paths, red-team tests, and customer-visible disclosures. (Only half of digital initiatives meet outcomes—tighten the value loop.) Gartner
Metrics to watch: incremental revenue per user (ARPU/NRR) from AI features, time-to-value (TTV) for AI releases, % automated decisions audited, model drift incidents.
Mindset 3: Build a vibrant data environment
What it means: Treat data as a real-time operating fabric for the business. That means cloud-native access across silos, governed sharing with partners, and instrumentation that lets teams simulate the ripple effects of changes before they ship. IBM
Common traps
Siloed dashboards as the “strategy.”
Starving data foundations while funding flashy experiments.
Moves for your next 90 days
Map the “critical paths” where stale or missing data slows growth (pricing, inventory, success handoffs). Fix those first with shared schemas and event streams. IBM
Design for participation: give partners scoped access; many leaders now co-create with ecosystems to move faster under uncertainty. IBM+1
Agent-readiness: document prompts, policies, and datasets your AI coworkers need to automate end-to-end tasks (not just snippets). IBM
Metrics to watch: % of key decisions made with real-time data, time to onboard a new data source/partner, data quality SLAs met, “time from question to answer” (TQA).
Mindset 4: Ignore FOMO; lean into ROI
What it means: De-risk innovation by funding fewer, bigger, clearer bets with line-of-sight to value—especially amid hype cycles. Gartner notes CEOs still prioritize growth and view AI as transformative, but half of initiatives miss outcomes without ruthless focus; CEO–CMO misalignment is also up ~20% since 2023, which muddies growth accountability. Gartner+2Gartner+2
Common traps
Chasing “must-have” trends without a revenue thesis.
Fuzzy ownership of growth metrics between product, marketing, and sales. Adweek
Moves for your next 90 days
Institutionalize pre-mortems and stage-gates (What must be true for this to pay back? What kills it?)
One growth scorecard: CEO-level KPIs agreed by CFO/CPO/CMO (e.g., CAC payback, NRR, sales velocity, self-serve conversion).
Kill list: every quarter, retire 10% of spend from low-return initiatives and redeploy to the top two bets. PwC shows many CEOs reallocate <20% annually—turn reallocation into a habit. PwC
Metrics to watch: ROI at 30/60/90 days for experiments, % spend behind top three bets, forecast accuracy, CAC payback.
Mindset 5: Borrow the talent you can’t buy
What it means: Blend in-house capability with borrowed talent—partners, fractional leaders, contractors, and ecosystems—to accelerate change without ballooning fixed costs. Leading CEOs are widening their talent aperture while “steeping” external experts in culture and goals to deliver outcomes fast. IBM
Common traps
Treating partners as vendors, not extensions of the mission (no shared dashboards, no joint planning).
Over-indexing on full-time hiring when speed demands different levers.
Moves for your next 90 days
Define must-own vs. can-borrow capabilities (e.g., own customer insights & security; borrow niche model-ops, category design, or GTM analytics). IBM
Joint operating rhythm: weekly “one-team” reviews with shared OKRs and access to systems; rotate internal leaders through partner squads. IBM
Leadership factory: seed a pipeline of next-gen leaders (resilience, learning agility, servant leadership) to absorb and scale what partners start. McKinsey & Company
Metrics to watch: time to capability (from SOW to shipped outcome), % external work transitioned in-house, partner NPS, blended cost-to-impact ratio.
Putting it together: a 12-week blueprint
Weeks 1–2: Alignment & pruning
Run a CEO-led growth summit: pick 2–3 AI-enabled growth bets, define the core guardrails for trust and customer promises. IBM+1
Publish a kill list and reallocate 10% of OpEx to the chosen bets. PwC
Weeks 3–6: Data & delivery
Stand up a real-time data fabric for the two bets (shared events, access rules, dashboards everyone uses). IBM
Launch two agentic-AI workflows (e.g., lead qualification → outreach; renewal risk → save play). Track uplift weekly. McKinsey & Company
Weeks 7–10: Talent & scaling
Spin up a blended “borrowed talent” squad (internal + partner) with joint OKRs and a 14-day ship cadence. IBM
Start a leadership factory: CEO hosts skip-levels; place 3–5 “mavericks” into stretch roles tied to the bets. McKinsey & Company
Weeks 11–12: Inspect & adapt
Review ROI by bet; cut or double-down. Document governance and trust outcomes publicly to strengthen brand equity. Edelman
In a year defined by optimism and existential pressure, these five mindsets separate leaders who ride the volatility from those who get rolled by it. If you apply them with discipline—courage anchored in trust, AI tied to value, data as a living fabric, ROI-first portfolios, and blended talent—you’ll create an organization that moves faster and compounds advantage. IBM+1
Further reading & sources
IBM 2025 CEO Study: Five Mindshifts (agentic AI, courage, data, ROI, talent). Great visuals and “what to do” checklists. IBM
PwC 2025 Global CEO Survey (optimism vs. viability; AI & climate ROI; reallocation habits). PwC
McKinsey Tech Trends 2025 (agentic AI, application-specific semis, scaling guidance). McKinsey & Company
McKinsey: Scaling the 21st-Century Leadership Factory (how CEOs build next-gen leaders). McKinsey & Company
MIT SMR on modern leadership traits and the limits of “tough CEO” mythology. MIT Sloan Management Review+1
Edelman Trust Barometer 2025 (trust dynamics CEOs must navigate). Edelman+1
Gartner on 2025 CEO priorities and why AI must tie to value. Gartner+1
Adweek summary of McKinsey research (CEO–CMO misalignment up ~20% since 2023). Adweek
FAQ for your leadership team
“Isn’t this just more digital transformation?”
No. The distinguishing feature in 2025 is agentic AI and the data environment needed to let it act safely and productively. The winning loop is: clear growth question → minimal viable data fabric → agentic AI workflow → governance & telemetry → iterate. McKinsey & Company+1
“Can we afford this?”
Start by reallocating from low-return work; many CEOs still move <20% of resources each year—make reallocation your growth engine. PwC
“What if customers push back?”
Lead with trust: disclose AI use where relevant, preserve human overrides, and measure the experience continuously. Trust pays back; distrust compounds risk. Edelman
