New from Wiley

Reinvention at theTop

The Playbook for CEOs to Lead Under Pressure

By Andrea Petrone, The CEO Whisperer

Wiley · 22 October 2026

"Andrea draws on decades of work with global leaders to offer something most leadership books miss: a direct, practical guide to staying aligned with who you are when the pressure to perform pulls you in every direction. A valuable read for any executive facing a defining moment."

Lorenzo Simonelli, Chairman and CEO, Baker Hughes

With endorsements from

"The greatest threat to performance isn't strategy or execution; it's the slow drift from who you are under pressure. The Identity, Message, Presence framework is a clear articulation of what separates leaders who endure from those who erode."

James W. Keyes

former CEO, 7-Eleven and Blockbuster

"We don't need more leadership frameworks. We need leaders who know who they are and refuse to fake it."

Gary Hamel

co-author of Humanocracy and Visiting Professor, London Business School

"A thoughtful and practical book for CEOs and aspiring CEOs who want better alignment between who they are, what they say, and how they show up in their most consequential roles."

Amy C. Edmondson

Novartis Professor of Leadership, Harvard Business School

Inside the book

The Throughline™

A recalibration architecture for leaders in motion, built from patterns across hundreds of CEO engagements. Three pillars that break down in the same order under pressure, and come back into alignment together.

01 Identity

"I need to feel like myself again."

Knowing who you are now, not who earned you the role, not who your brand claims you are.

02 Message

"I need to say words that matter."

A repeatable narrative of conviction that gives people clarity, confidence and a standard to follow.

03 Presence

"I need to show up as all of me."

The felt alignment between your conviction and your expression when the room is watching.

The companion toolkit

Start With the assessment

See where you stand first, then put it to work. Three free tools follow to apply the Throughline in your own context.

Interactive · Your result

The Identity–Message–Presence Scorecard

A quick self-assessment to spot drift before it costs you.

Ten minutes. See which pillar is drifting, and get your full read across all three.

Get Your Score

Plus three free tools to put it into practice

Free · Sent to your inbox

The 30-Day Proof Planner

One decision. One conversation. One visible standard.

A single month of deliberate moves. People believe what they watch you do.

Get The Planner

Free · Sent to your inbox

The Reset Cadence

Weekly, monthly and quarterly prompts to stay deliberate.

Pressure pulls you into old patterns. This is your return mechanism, at the right intervals.

Get The Cadence

Free · Sent to your inbox

Executive Room Prompts

Questions that make alignment visible and standards real.

Most rooms run on assumed alignment that isn't there. These surface what your team actually believes.

Get The Prompts

New tools and resources added regularly.

the author

Meet Andrea Petrone

Andrea Petrone, known as The CEO Whisperer, specializes in helping leaders and organisations recalibrate their architecture under pressure. He is the host of The World-Class Leaders Show, where he explores the hard-earned lessons of global executives.

His work is rooted in observation of high-performance behaviours across industries, providing a clear mirror for CEOs to recognise their own drift and return to alignment.

Andrea also coaches a small number of CEOs each year.

listen

The World Class Leaders Show

go deeper

WCL21 Peer Community

Speaking

Bring the book to your stage

The keynote grew out of the book: how CEOs and senior leaders hold their nerve, their message, and themselves under real pressure. Andrea has coached more than 250 CEOs and C-suite leaders across seven countries, and he brings that room-tested material to boards, leadership offsites, and conferences.