ARTICLE
Navigating the Succession Paradox:
“The CEO as Creator – More Artist than Strategist”
This is the second installment in Lyceum’s ongoing Navigating the Succession Paradox series. This article explores a fundamental aspect of the CEO’s identity and attachment to their role, revealing a key reason many CEOs delay succession planning. Like sculptors and writers, CEOs are driven by a profound, intrinsic need to create and express. This deep-seated drive to shape, build, and bring vision to life makes it exceptionally challenging for CEOs to let go. For them, leadership is an art form.
To estimate and interpret the work of an artist is to be creatively just to him. For this reason there are fewer critics than there are artists, and criticism with but few exceptions is almost invariably negligible and futile.
~Rainer Maria Rilke in his illuminating essay “Auguste Rodin” (1919)
The great Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke was a friend of the great French sculptor Rodin, each making symbols in different media, Rilke in words and Rodin in bronze. Poets and sculptors and artists of every kind, and we would add CEOs to that list, are often lonely figures, sensing themselves isolated and the heart of their work not fully understood. Rodin, though, believed that Rilke succeeded in comprehending his vision, and Rilke wrote down his reflections in a short essay entitled simply “Auguste Rodin.”
From the preface of that essay, “Rodin had pronounced Rilke’s essay the supreme interpretation of his work. Rodin felt that Rilke approached his sculptures from the same imaginative sphere whence his own creative impulse sprang; he knew that in the pellucid and illuminating realm of the poetic, his works found their spiritual home as their material manifestation partook of the atmosphere when placed under the open sky, given wholly to the sun and wind and rain.”
The role of the CEO has traditionally been framed as a position of power, responsibility, and strategy. But to those who embody the role as their life’s purpose, it’s much more—it is an art form. In Rilke’s reflections on his friend, the sculptor Auguste Rodin, he captures an artist’s unique devotion to creation. In this article, Rilke’s insights on Rodin offer a unique lens to examine the CEO’s artistry and deep-rooted need for creation.
Rodin, Auguste. The Thinker. 1902, Musée Rodin, Paris.
The CEO as Artist
Writers work through words—Sculptors through matter.
~from Renaissance philosopher Pomponius Gauricus in his essay, “De Sculptura” (about 1504)
“Writers work through words—Sculptors through matter,” yet the CEO works through people, systems, and vision, shaping a living organization as dynamically as a sculptor forms stone. Just as the writer’s words and the sculptor’s hands strive to transform an abstract idea into a lasting expression, the CEO’s vision and leadership shapes a living organization with the same care and artistry as a sculptor forms stone. The CEO molds intangible assets—values, purpose, and culture—into a cohesive entity with its own life and impact. Each decision, each cultural value, each strategic plan is a brushstroke, a chisel mark, building an organization that not only achieves, but also expresses.
Like Rodin’s sculptures or Rilke’s poems, an organization becomes the CEO’s canvas—a medium through which they express enduring values, vision, and purpose. Herein lies the challenge when it comes time for succession. For a leader who sees their organization as a canvas for self-expression, stepping down can feel not like a career transition, but an existential loss. To understand this reluctance to let go and the power behind it, we must see the CEO not only as an executive but as an artist of their own kind and as a human with a powerful need for creative expression.
The Human Need for Creative Expression
The need for self-expression is a fundamental human drive and has been explored extensively in psychology, philosophy, and the arts. This need, often linked to self-actualization, can be seen as an individual’s way of making sense of their inner world and leaving a mark on the outer one. Otto Rank, the Austrian psychoanalyst and disciple of Freud, in his work Art and Artists: Creative Urge and Personality Development delves into the psychology of the artist and the creative process. He argues that creating art allows individuals to transcend their mortality by leaving a lasting imprint on the world, viewing creativity as an expression of the will to live on symbolically. This drive to create, he noted, is not merely a task, profession, or career ambition, but a profound and basic human need—a quest to realize and preserve oneself through creation. CEOs, much like artists, may come to view their organizations as extensions of their own legacies, works of art through which they live on symbolically. The act of building and refining an organization becomes a vital channel for self-expression, one that many leaders cannot easily give up.
Rank’s insights reveal why succession can be emotionally complex for CEOs. Rather than fearing the loss of power or title, they may fear the loss of an avenue for influence. This reluctance is not about clinging to authority but about preserving a channel through which they create and uniquely shape society. The company, like an artist’s canvas or a musician’s instrument, is essential for them to realize and continue their purpose. It is the medium through which they create, evolve, and refine their contributions to the world.
The CEO’s Role as a Canvas for Self-Expression
The artistry of leadership, as with any form of creative work, relies on a deep connection between creator and creation. For the CEO, the organization itself is a living canvas, one that changes, grows, and evolves through their influence. As Rodin’s hands “lived like a hundred hands,” tirelessly transforming material, the CEO’s decisions and actions mold the company’s structure, culture, and future. It is through these actions that the CEO brings form to the unseen, shaping formless values and abstract strategies into something real and lasting.
A sculptor in clay or marble invests a piece of themselves in every line and curve, much as a CEO leaves a unique imprint on the organization they lead. Every process built, every value upheld, and every strategy crafted serves as a piece of their identity. The role is not just a job but a continual, evolving expression of their essence. To step away is akin to asking an artist to abandon their work mid-stroke. For a CEO, the company represents a living and breathing masterpiece—a living testament to their beliefs and aspirations.
Identity and Legacy: Why Stepping Down Feels Like a Loss
As Rilke observed in Rodin’s work, there is a quiet devotion to the “grace of great things” that requires time, patience, and commitment. The CEO’s role becomes a ‘continuum of purpose’—an arena where personal mission and professional growth converge in a seamless, ongoing masterpiece. This integration of self with role explains why stepping down can feel not only like a disruption but a loss of identity.
To an artist or CEO alike, the act of creation is more than an output; it’s an extension of self. This deep-seated attachment can turn succession planning into an experience akin to leaving part of oneself behind. They fear that, without their continued involvement, the legacy they’ve cultivated may not endure or evolve in alignment with their vision. The organization, like an uncompleted sculpture, remains unfinished in their eyes, and they may worry that their unique “voice” will be lost without their guiding hand.
The Psychological and Emotional Barriers to Succession
In his insightful book The Hero’s Farewell: What Happens When CEOs Retire, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld defines “work-intensive people.” Work-intensive people have an inner need to create. They are highly motivated people engaged in personally involving work, who reach for bold goals for life accomplishment. These are not people who have a workaholic’s external orientation which he describes as people who are always out of fear compulsively driven to meet the expectations of others. Instead, work-intensives are creative people that seek to have a profound influence on shaping the society around them and have an inner drive to excel and to stand apart from others through the magnificence of their contribution.
For work-intensive CEOs, succession planning is not seen as just a simple process of setting a roadmap for the future; it’s a mandate to relinquish the very space that has allowed them to shape, grow, and realize their unique vision. Stepping aside can feel like depriving the painter of his canvas forevermore. For the CEO, their reluctance is not rooted in fear of retirement, but in the loss of the platform that allows them to bring their purpose to life.
Where a traditional workaholic might resist stepping down out of fear of external judgment, the work-intensive CEO is often motivated by an inner need to continue creating. Their attachment to the organization is less about authority and more about safeguarding a space for meaningful self-expression. For them, the role of CEO represents an ongoing creative process that cannot be easily set aside.
An Organization as an Extension of Self
To these work-intensive leaders, the organization is not a separate entity but an extension of their own aspirations, values, and vision. It is a personal journey manifested outwardly, a journey that has defined them as much as they have defined it. Stepping away can feel less like moving on and more like abandoning a channel through which their deeper self finds meaning and fulfillment. Like Rodin’s sculptures, which embodied his silent dialogue with the material, the organization becomes a living dialogue between the CEO and the world.
The organization stands as a tangible reflection of their inner world. Every structure built, every relationship fostered, and every value instilled represents an indelible mark of their presence. Leaving means halting their ever-evolving creation – surrendering the living testament of their convictions and contributions.
Rodin, Auguste. The Age of Bronze. 1877, Musée Rodin, Paris.
Conclusion: The CEO’s Role as an Ongoing Dialogue
Rilke wrote of Rodin’s work as “undulations without end,” capturing the artist’s desire to continuously shape and reshape his creations. For the CEO, this sense of unfinished work resonates deeply. The true legacy of a CEO-artist is not just in the structures they leave behind, but in the ongoing process of creation and refinement that continues even after they’ve stepped down. The essence of their leadership is not simply in what is built, but in how their vision and values persist, reverberating through the culture, people, and impact of the organization.
In the end, CEOs, like all artists, are driven by a need for expression, a need to see their ideals and values take form in the world. For many, succession planning is less about passing on responsibility and more about finding peace with themselves and with the evolution of their legacy. It is a testament to the intrinsic human desire to create, shape, and leave a lasting mark—a desire that defines not only their role as leaders but as creators of a lasting, living work of art.
While the CEO’s attachment to creation often complicates succession, they’re not the only stakeholder with conflicting interests. In the next article, we’ll examine the role of the Chairman of the Board—and how their unique position can either smooth the path to succession or create barriers of its own.
Bibliography
- Rilke, Rainer Maria. Auguste Rodin. Translated by Jessie Lemont and Hans Trausil. New York: Sunwise Turn Inc., 1919.
- Rank, Otto. Art and Artists: Creative Urge and Personality Development. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1932.
- Sonnenfeld, Jeffrey. The Hero’s Farewell: What Happens When CEOs Retire. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
- Gauricus, Pomponius. De Sculptura. Circa 1504.
Join the Lyceum Circle of Leaders®
If you are enjoying our content and haven’t yet joined the Lyceum Circle of Leaders®, we’re confident that you’ll find tremendous value in being part of it. This is a unique community of forward-thinking, like-minded leaders. Together, we’re focused on improving leadership and dedicated to progress through shared intelligence—if you’ve read this far, then we are certain that your voice and perspective would be a great addition.
As a member of the Lyceum Circle of Leaders®, you’ll gain access to each article, engage with other forward-thinking leaders, and receive exclusive insights that go beyond the public content.
Join in time for the next installment of Navigating the Succession Paradox, where we’ll examine the role of the Chairman of the Board—and how their unique position can either smooth the path to succession or create barriers of its own.
This is the second installment in Lyceum’s ongoing Navigating the Succession Paradox series. This article explores a fundamental aspect of the CEO’s identity and attachment to their role, revealing a key reason many CEOs delay succession planning. Like sculptors and writers, CEOs are driven by a profound, intrinsic need to create and express. This deep-seated drive to shape, build, and bring vision to life makes it exceptionally challenging for CEOs to let go. For them, leadership is an art form.
To estimate and interpret the work of an artist is to be creatively just to him. For this reason there are fewer critics than there are artists, and criticism with but few exceptions is almost invariably negligible and futile.
~Rainer Maria Rilke in his illuminating essay “Auguste Rodin” (1919)
The great Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke was a friend of the great French sculptor Rodin, each making symbols in different media, Rilke in words and Rodin in bronze. Poets and sculptors and artists of every kind, and we would add CEOs to that list, are often lonely figures, sensing themselves isolated and the heart of their work not fully understood. Rodin, though, believed that Rilke succeeded in comprehending his vision, and Rilke wrote down his reflections in a short essay entitled simply “Auguste Rodin.”
From the preface of that essay, “Rodin had pronounced Rilke’s essay the supreme interpretation of his work. Rodin felt that Rilke approached his sculptures from the same imaginative sphere whence his own creative impulse sprang; he knew that in the pellucid and illuminating realm of the poetic, his works found their spiritual home as their material manifestation partook of the atmosphere when placed under the open sky, given wholly to the sun and wind and rain.”
The role of the CEO has traditionally been framed as a position of power, responsibility, and strategy. But to those who embody the role as their life’s purpose, it’s much more—it is an art form. In Rilke’s reflections on his friend, the sculptor Auguste Rodin, he captures an artist’s unique devotion to creation. In this article, Rilke’s insights on Rodin offer a unique lens to examine the CEO’s artistry and deep-rooted need for creation.
Rodin, Auguste. The Thinker. 1902, Musée Rodin, Paris.
The CEO as Artist
Writers work through words—Sculptors through matter.
~from Renaissance philosopher Pomponius Gauricus in his essay, “De Sculptura” (about 1504)
“Writers work through words—Sculptors through matter,” yet the CEO works through people, systems, and vision, shaping a living organization as dynamically as a sculptor forms stone. Just as the writer’s words and the sculptor’s hands strive to transform an abstract idea into a lasting expression, the CEO’s vision and leadership shapes a living organization with the same care and artistry as a sculptor forms stone. The CEO molds intangible assets—values, purpose, and culture—into a cohesive entity with its own life and impact. Each decision, each cultural value, each strategic plan is a brushstroke, a chisel mark, building an organization that not only achieves, but also expresses.
Like Rodin’s sculptures or Rilke’s poems, an organization becomes the CEO’s canvas—a medium through which they express enduring values, vision, and purpose. Herein lies the challenge when it comes time for succession. For a leader who sees their organization as a canvas for self-expression, stepping down can feel not like a career transition, but an existential loss. To understand this reluctance to let go and the power behind it, we must see the CEO not only as an executive but as an artist of their own kind and as a human with a powerful need for creative expression.
The Human Need for Creative Expression
The need for self-expression is a fundamental human drive and has been explored extensively in psychology, philosophy, and the arts. This need, often linked to self-actualization, can be seen as an individual’s way of making sense of their inner world and leaving a mark on the outer one. Otto Rank, the Austrian psychoanalyst and disciple of Freud, in his work Art and Artists: Creative Urge and Personality Development delves into the psychology of the artist and the creative process. He argues that creating art allows individuals to transcend their mortality by leaving a lasting imprint on the world, viewing creativity as an expression of the will to live on symbolically. This drive to create, he noted, is not merely a task, profession, or career ambition, but a profound and basic human need—a quest to realize and preserve oneself through creation. CEOs, much like artists, may come to view their organizations as extensions of their own legacies, works of art through which they live on symbolically. The act of building and refining an organization becomes a vital channel for self-expression, one that many leaders cannot easily give up.
Rank’s insights reveal why succession can be emotionally complex for CEOs. Rather than fearing the loss of power or title, they may fear the loss of an avenue for influence. This reluctance is not about clinging to authority but about preserving a channel through which they create and uniquely shape society. The company, like an artist’s canvas or a musician’s instrument, is essential for them to realize and continue their purpose. It is the medium through which they create, evolve, and refine their contributions to the world.
The CEO’s Role as a Canvas for Self-Expression
The artistry of leadership, as with any form of creative work, relies on a deep connection between creator and creation. For the CEO, the organization itself is a living canvas, one that changes, grows, and evolves through their influence. As Rodin’s hands “lived like a hundred hands,” tirelessly transforming material, the CEO’s decisions and actions mold the company’s structure, culture, and future. It is through these actions that the CEO brings form to the unseen, shaping formless values and abstract strategies into something real and lasting.
A sculptor in clay or marble invests a piece of themselves in every line and curve, much as a CEO leaves a unique imprint on the organization they lead. Every process built, every value upheld, and every strategy crafted serves as a piece of their identity. The role is not just a job but a continual, evolving expression of their essence. To step away is akin to asking an artist to abandon their work mid-stroke. For a CEO, the company represents a living and breathing masterpiece—a living testament to their beliefs and aspirations.
Identity and Legacy: Why Stepping Down Feels Like a Loss
As Rilke observed in Rodin’s work, there is a quiet devotion to the “grace of great things” that requires time, patience, and commitment. The CEO’s role becomes a ‘continuum of purpose’—an arena where personal mission and professional growth converge in a seamless, ongoing masterpiece. This integration of self with role explains why stepping down can feel not only like a disruption but a loss of identity.
To an artist or CEO alike, the act of creation is more than an output; it’s an extension of self. This deep-seated attachment can turn succession planning into an experience akin to leaving part of oneself behind. They fear that, without their continued involvement, the legacy they’ve cultivated may not endure or evolve in alignment with their vision. The organization, like an uncompleted sculpture, remains unfinished in their eyes, and they may worry that their unique “voice” will be lost without their guiding hand.
The Psychological and Emotional Barriers to Succession
In his insightful book The Hero’s Farewell: What Happens When CEOs Retire, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld defines “work-intensive people.” Work-intensive people have an inner need to create. They are highly motivated people engaged in personally involving work, who reach for bold goals for life accomplishment. These are not people who have a workaholic’s external orientation which he describes as people who are always out of fear compulsively driven to meet the expectations of others. Instead, work-intensives are creative people that seek to have a profound influence on shaping the society around them and have an inner drive to excel and to stand apart from others through the magnificence of their contribution.
For work-intensive CEOs, succession planning is not seen as just a simple process of setting a roadmap for the future; it’s a mandate to relinquish the very space that has allowed them to shape, grow, and realize their unique vision. Stepping aside can feel like depriving the painter of his canvas forevermore. For the CEO, their reluctance is not rooted in fear of retirement, but in the loss of the platform that allows them to bring their purpose to life.
Where a traditional workaholic might resist stepping down out of fear of external judgment, the work-intensive CEO is often motivated by an inner need to continue creating. Their attachment to the organization is less about authority and more about safeguarding a space for meaningful self-expression. For them, the role of CEO represents an ongoing creative process that cannot be easily set aside.
An Organization as an Extension of Self
To these work-intensive leaders, the organization is not a separate entity but an extension of their own aspirations, values, and vision. It is a personal journey manifested outwardly, a journey that has defined them as much as they have defined it. Stepping away can feel less like moving on and more like abandoning a channel through which their deeper self finds meaning and fulfillment. Like Rodin’s sculptures, which embodied his silent dialogue with the material, the organization becomes a living dialogue between the CEO and the world.
The organization stands as a tangible reflection of their inner world. Every structure built, every relationship fostered, and every value instilled represents an indelible mark of their presence. Leaving means halting their ever-evolving creation – surrendering the living testament of their convictions and contributions.
Rodin, Auguste. The Age of Bronze. 1877, Musée Rodin, Paris.
Conclusion: The CEO’s Role as an Ongoing Dialogue
Rilke wrote of Rodin’s work as “undulations without end,” capturing the artist’s desire to continuously shape and reshape his creations. For the CEO, this sense of unfinished work resonates deeply. The true legacy of a CEO-artist is not just in the structures they leave behind, but in the ongoing process of creation and refinement that continues even after they’ve stepped down. The essence of their leadership is not simply in what is built, but in how their vision and values persist, reverberating through the culture, people, and impact of the organization.
In the end, CEOs, like all artists, are driven by a need for expression, a need to see their ideals and values take form in the world. For many, succession planning is less about passing on responsibility and more about finding peace with themselves and with the evolution of their legacy. It is a testament to the intrinsic human desire to create, shape, and leave a lasting mark—a desire that defines not only their role as leaders but as creators of a lasting, living work of art.
While the CEO’s attachment to creation often complicates succession, they’re not the only stakeholder with conflicting interests. In the next article, we’ll examine the role of the Chairman of the Board—and how their unique position can either smooth the path to succession or create barriers of its own.
Bibliography
- Rilke, Rainer Maria. Auguste Rodin. Translated by Jessie Lemont and Hans Trausil. New York: Sunwise Turn Inc., 1919.
- Rank, Otto. Art and Artists: Creative Urge and Personality Development. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1932.
- Sonnenfeld, Jeffrey. The Hero’s Farewell: What Happens When CEOs Retire. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
- Gauricus, Pomponius. De Sculptura. Circa 1504.
Join the Lyceum Circle of Leaders®
If you are enjoying our content and haven’t yet joined the Lyceum Circle of Leaders®, we’re confident that you’ll find tremendous value in being part of it. This is a unique community of forward-thinking, like-minded leaders. Together, we’re focused on improving leadership and dedicated to progress through shared intelligence—if you’ve read this far, then we are certain that your voice and perspective would be a great addition.
As a member of the Lyceum Circle of Leaders®, you’ll gain access to each article, engage with other forward-thinking leaders, and receive exclusive insights that go beyond the public content.
Join in time for the next installment of Navigating the Succession Paradox, where we’ll examine the role of the Chairman of the Board—and how their unique position can either smooth the path to succession or create barriers of its own.
