One CEO in two doubts they will hit their targets: what that figure really says

L'Echo (Belgian business daily) reported it this week, based on a Heidrick & Struggles study: 47 % of Benelux CEOs do not feel able to reach the targets set for their company. The first instinct would be to read that as an admission of weakness. It would miss the essential point. As the firm itself stresses, the figure reflects above all a healthy clear-sightedness in the face of a job that has become unpredictable. The real issue isn't a lack of competence: it is the gap between the course a leader sets and the real means to execute it. And that gap can be closed.

The figure stops you short. According to Heidrick & Struggles' annual study of leadership profiles, reported by L'Echo, 47 % of Benelux CEOs believe they are not in a position to reach the targets set for their company. Put differently, nearly one boss in two is heading for a target they expect to miss. You could read it as a people problem, or as badly calibrated objectives. The right reading lies elsewhere, and the firm states it plainly: this doubt is not a weakness, it is clear-sightedness. Marie-Hélène De Coster, partner at Heidrick & Struggles BeLux, sees in it a level of self-criticism she calls healthy. What remains is to understand what the doubt points to, and above all what is done with it.

Doubt isn't a weakness, it is clear-sightedness

Let us start by turning the stigma around, because the firm behind the study does so itself. A leader who doubts their ability to reach a target is showing clear-sightedness, not fragility. For Marie-Hélène De Coster, that level of self-criticism is even a sign of health. The real danger isn't the boss who questions themselves, it is the one who charges ahead certain of getting there when nothing in their organisation makes it possible. Doubt is a valuable warning signal: it means the gap between the course and the means has been noticed. The point, then, is not to silence that doubt with positive talk, but to listen to it and go and see what it is pointing at. Almost always, it points to the same place: not the target itself, but the missing path to reach it.

The “chief everything officer”, a job that has become unpredictable

Why this doubt, and why now? The firm offers a clear explanation, rooted in the evolution of the job itself. Today's CEOs have become “chief everything officers”, responsible for everything at once, in an era where everything moves very fast. A leader can wake up one morning and discover they have lost most of their revenue in a foreign country. Geopolitical conflicts create cascading logistics breakdowns, and artificial intelligence makes the future even less predictable. In that context, declaring yourself certain of reaching targets set months earlier would be blindness, not confidence. Leaders' doubt is the rational response to an environment that has become structurally unstable. The question is therefore no longer how to eliminate uncertainty, which cannot be uprooted, but how to build organisations capable of getting through it.

The gap between the course and the means

Setting a target is easy; it is even the simplest part of a leader's job. A growth figure, a market share, a target margin are laid out in a single sentence. What is missing, in most cases, isn't the target, it is the execution machinery that should carry it. Between the course announced at the start of the year and its delivery, you need a chain: clear priorities, few in number, a breakdown into concrete actions, named owners, indicators that raise the alarm early, and a management rhythm that corrects along the way. When that chain is absent or vague, the target remains a suspended intention, and the leader feels it. Their doubt is simply the honest translation of that missing chain.

Loneliness, that multiplier of doubt

There is one further, more intimate reason behind this result. Leaders often decide alone. The research on entrepreneurial loneliness is unambiguous: the permanent decision load, over-commitment and isolation form a circle that erodes both confidence and health. Bpifrance Le Lab shows that among highly isolated leaders, nearly one in two rates their mental health as poor. And a leader alone with their targets has nobody to help check whether the course is reachable, to break the path into stages, to spot the blind spot. The doubt they feel isn't only about the gap in means; it is amplified by the absence of an outside perspective that would help turn uncertainty into a plan. Breaking that loneliness already halves the doubt.

Closing the gap, concretely

The good news is that the gap between target and execution is treated with method, not with extra willpower. The approach comes down to a handful of moves. First, bring the targets back to a very small number of priorities, because a company chasing ten courses reaches none. Then break each priority down into measurable, dated results, with a single owner. Then install a short, regular management rhythm, where you look at the indicators that count and correct before the gap becomes irrecoverable. Finally, give the leader what they lack most: a counterpart at their own level with whom to challenge the course and settle trade-offs, so that they no longer decide alone. This is no management sleight of hand, it is structure. And structure turns a wish into a trajectory.

Doubt, handled well, becomes a course