Today’s CEOs must adopt a wartime leadership mindset, irrespective of actual geopolitical battles.

• In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady discusses why a wartime mentality has become the standard.
• The big story: Has Cursor met its end?
• The markets: Experiencing significant declines as the conflict with Iran intensifies.
• Plus: All the latest news and office chatter from .

(SeaPRwire) –   Good morning. There is a sense in which any CEO leads in wartime when their nation is engaged in conflict. However, the idea and its associated traits reach well beyond the sphere of geopolitics. As Geoff Colvin of notes, Shell integrated military-inspired scenario planning into the core of its corporate strategy during the 1970s. I have discussed the notions of wartime and peacetime leadership with venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, who authored a piece on the topic 15 years ago, and with Stephen Miles, a leadership consultant at TMG. When UiPath CEO Daniel Dines remarked to me last week that “we treat this time as wartime,” he was referring not to Iran, but to his company’s shift from robotic process automation toward agentic AI.

So, what is different now?

‘War’ is the norm – “Peacetime ended for us in March of 2020,” Miles explained to me recently. “We now inhabit a world that is ambiguous, uncertain, and discontinuous … The pace is measured in hours, minutes, and seconds, not quarters and years, and I do not anticipate that shifting.” He believes this environment demands a leadership style characterized by “total immersion, which offers greater context and the capacity for weak-signal detection, allowing you to sense the first hints of smoke before a full-blown fire erupts.”

Anxiety, alignment and agency – According to Horowitz, a peacetime CEO thrives when the market is expanding; in wartime, they confront an “imminent existential threat.” The former focuses on market growth and building on strengths, while the latter is concerned with speed and survival. As Dines stated: “During peacetime, you can accommodate varied behaviors and work on adjustments … Now, we must execute decisions more rapidly and communicate them across the company much faster.” Anxiety serves as a catalyst for action—”If you delay to observe the world’s direction, it will not succeed.”—and Dines describes agency as “individuals who possess both the knowledge and the determination to drive results.”

People become disposable – In warfare, lives are lost. In the corporate world, the parallel is employees being let go. Greater risks are assumed. Disagreement is not welcomed, and achieving consensus is not a main objective. There is also intensified pressure on senior leadership. My colleague Claire Zillman reports that, generally, the AI revolution is leading to increased CEO turnover, as per Spencer Stuart. A study by Feigen Advisors revealed that, despite reports of soaring turnover rates, leadership stability among a specific group—the top half of the S&P 500—has remained fairly constant, although it also noted that CEO churn outside the United States is on the rise. Does this suggest America is prevailing in this war? The answer, naturally, hinges on your definition of the battlefield.

Contact CEO Daily with Diane Brady at diane.brady@.com