Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has a query he likes to ask founders about their corporations: “Why do you deserve to exist?” It’s a provocation that’s not about market share, pitch decks, or investor urge for food, however moderately necessity. “The best generic answer I’ve ever received was, ‘if I don’t do it, no one else will,’” he just lately advised the tech information podcast TBPN.
It’s a hanging query that extra CEOs—or these aspiring to be—ought to be requested and even ask themselves. Leaders are sometimes evaluated on their capability to scale a company, handle complexity, encourage workers, and reassure buyers. These are essential competencies. However they don’t contact the deeper inquiry: When you didn’t lead, would something significant be misplaced?
As Leslie Motter, CEO of Make-A-Want, advised me just lately, changing into a chief government isn’t a proper or the inevitable subsequent rung on the company ladder—it’s a accountability. And more and more, it calls for ethical readability, resilience, and a way of obligation that goes past ambition.
Chesky’s query reframes the CEO function the way in which founders usually perceive it: not as one thing you need to obtain, however one thing you’re feeling compelled to shoulder.
It calls to thoughts a dialog I had earlier this yr with Nike’s Elliott Hill, who advised me he pursued the CEO function as a result of he genuinely believed he was the one who might return the corporate to heightened development. Equally, Pink Lobster CEO Damola Adamolekun just lately advised me he accepted the function believing he might assist spark the best restaurant turnaround in latest reminiscence. In each instances, the why wasn’t the title. It was the issue they felt personally chargeable for fixing.
The most effective CEOs usually say they weren’t pushed by entitlement to the highest job, however by the understanding that there was work that was theirs to do. As an alternative of pondering they deserve the seat, they acknowledge that the seat deserves one thing solely they can provide. With out that conviction, the CEO function dangers changing into empty efficiency.
This mindset issues all of the extra immediately. As CEO turnover accelerates and belief in establishments turns into tenuous, the CEO isn’t merely the strategist or the operator. They’re the provider of the group’s very cause for present.
Editor’s be aware: The deadline to use for the Fortune Subsequent to Lead checklist is Monday, Dec.1, 2025. For extra data or to submit a nomination, apply right here.
Ruth Umoh
ruth.umoh@fortune.com
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
