CEO's nightmares

It is said that to be a CEO you need to have a different mindset. Some psychologists even say you need to have a lower empathy ability than the rest to be a CEO because you need to be able to fire someone without blinking an eye if you know that it is good for the company, even though you know it would destroy a family.

However, even CEOs have nightmares. They fear certain things. The best of them can create opportunities even from those things they are afraid of. A.T. Kearney's recent survey gave me insight into what those things are. 

Global executives expect economic and financial volatility to be higher over the next 12 months than it was in the past year, according to the 2017 report "Views from the C-Suite" published by A.T. Kearney's Global Business Policy Council. Volatility is perceived as yielding both positive and negative prospects. One-third of global C-suite executives surveyed identify a stronger macroeconomic environment as a top external opportunity this year.

Global executives express concerns about a variety of political risks. The unstable geopolitical environment is the top challenge executives expect to face in the external environment this year. Some 36 percent of global executives indicate that unstable geopolitical dynamics are a central challenge, including refugee/migration crises, armed conflict, terrorism, piracy and crime. 

For the second consecutive year, the C-suite survey maintained a focus on the role of technology. Executives see technology as their biggest operational focus over the next 12 months. The top operational challenge for the global C-suite is rising cybersecurity risk, with 43 percent of executives pointing to this as a key concern. Some 85 percent of global executives believe that...