CEOs can lose touch with ordinary working life without intending to: small accommodations, constant deference and pressure to manage other people’s expectations can gradually make exceptional treatment feel normal. In his October 3, 2026, Fortune essay, Nitin Nohria calls this a “quiet peril” and argues that leaders and boards should periodically question whether executive arrangements still serve a real purpose—and what those arrangements do to a CEO’s perspective.
How a CEO can drift away from ordinary expectations
Nohria illustrates the shift with an unnamed CEO. Soon after taking the job, the executive arrived late to a workshop after waiting at a taxi stand, apologized, picked up his used coffee cup and remarked that the Four Seasons felt too fancy. Five years later, staff had requested a suite, collected detailed food and wine preferences, arranged a private room for calls, and organized chauffeured transport with a bodyguard and chief of staff. He was late again and did not apologize.
The story is an illustration, not evidence that all CEOs behave this way. Its point is how a series of individually explainable arrangements can accumulate. As colleagues anticipate one person’s needs, the organization may adapt around that person until treatment that once seemed unusual becomes routine. The CEO can then become less aware of the time, constraints and expectations experienced by employees and customers.
What helps create the executive bubble?
Convenience and time pressure
CEOs often face demanding schedules. Nohria notes that private aviation, for example, can be rationalized as a way to save time. The risk is not that every convenience is unjustified; it is that repeated adjustments make other people’s time and routines subordinate to the executive’s schedule.
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The emotional demands of the role
A CEO may have to project confidence amid uncertainty, reassure employees and make painful decisions such as closing businesses or conducting layoffs. One leader described the burden as “emotional asymmetry”: taking in other people’s emotions while having little room to express one’s own. Nohria suggests that strain can feed a feeling of being owed special treatment.
Security needs that become defaults
Some protections are reasonable when they respond to actual threats. Nohria mentions bodyguards, armored vehicles and private air travel, and points to the December 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. His concern is that a safeguard first experienced as an exceptional measure can eventually feel essential by default. Reviewing a security arrangement does not mean dismissing a genuine threat; it means distinguishing an ongoing need from an assumption that no one is permitted to revisit.
Deference and organizational adaptation
Nohria invokes Harvard colleague Rakesh Khurana’s idea of “structurally induced narcissism”: attention, adulation and deference may cultivate narcissistic tendencies even in leaders without a prior predisposition. That is distinct from the argument that people with narcissistic traits may be drawn to leadership. The essay presents these as possible dynamics, not a diagnosis of any particular CEO.
What Nohria’s work-hours figure does—and does not—show
Nohria reports that a minute-by-minute study he coauthored with Michael Porter found CEOs worked an average of 62.5 hours per week and worked most weekends and vacation days. The Fortune essay does not state the study’s year, sample or methodology, so the figure should be understood as the result Nohria reports—not as a fully described or independently assessed estimate here.
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The essay also quotes an unnamed CEO: “Even when I’m not working,” one told us, “I’m thinking about work.” That comment conveys how the job can occupy attention beyond scheduled hours, but it is an anecdote, not a measure of every CEO’s experience.
Why executive accommodations can become a governance issue
Nohria recounts the disclosure of Jack Welch’s GE retirement package during his divorce, roughly a quarter-century before the essay. The reported benefits included use of an $11 million Manhattan apartment, unlimited use of the company plane, a chauffeured limousine, flowers, dry cleaning, wine and premium sports and entertainment seats. According to Nohria, Welch agreed within days to give up most of the benefits and pay for those he kept, while defending the arrangement as legally negotiated and earned: “In this particular deal, I sacrificed millions of dollars.”
The example does not establish that every generous executive arrangement is improper. It shows why boards should make such arrangements understandable and reviewable: a deal can be legally agreed while still prompting questions about purpose, precedent and how it looks to employees or the public.
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Review accommodations for purpose and ongoing value
Boards and senior colleagues can periodically ask what an arrangement solves and whether it still solves that problem. A useful discussion separates three questions: is there an operational or security need, does the arrangement still provide value, and does it preserve or weaken the leader’s contact with employees and customers? These are prompts for judgment, not a validated scorecard.
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- Author: Lencioni, Patrick.
- Publisher: Jossey-Bass
- Pages: 160
- Publication Date: 2008
- Edition: 1
Ask how the arrangement looks from outside
Nohria recommends that leaders pause and ask: “This may feel normal to me, but how does it look from the outside?” The question helps reveal when a private convenience has become an organizational expectation that others might find hard to challenge.
Keep candid advisers close—and make disagreement safe
A leadership coach, a wise general counsel or chief human resources officer, and people close to frontline work and customers can offer perspectives that a CEO’s immediate circle may miss. Their advice is only useful if disagreement is safe, particularly when their own jobs depend on the CEO’s goodwill.
Protect relationships that are not about status
Nohria points to long-standing friendships, family time, activities with people whose lives differ from the CEO’s, pickup basketball and book clubs as ways to retain connections beyond executive life. One unnamed CEO described the value of family time this way: “It’s not about the meal,” he said. “It’s about being reminded that I’m just Dad.”
Choose ordinary arrangements sometimes
Nohria describes a prominent alumnus who rented his own car, parked in the regular lot and ate in the employee cafeteria rather than the executive dining room. The point is not that every leader must reject support or security. Choosing ordinary arrangements when practical can provide direct contact with routines that status and staff arrangements otherwise filter out.
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These practices are Nohria’s recommendations, not interventions shown in the essay to produce measured results. Their purpose is to make assumptions visible and keep leaders in contact with the people affected by their decisions.
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