TIAA CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett: ‘I rent my title. I own my character’

For executives with C-suite ambitions, the question is often how to earn the title. TIAA CEO Thasunda Duckett argues the more consequential challenge is ensuring the title never becomes the center of your identity.

“I rent my title. I own my character,” Duckett recently told Fortune editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell, noting that there will come a day when she is no longer CEO of TIAA. 

What belongs to her, Duckett says, are the qualities she believes no board can confer or take away: “I own my intellectual curiosity. I own my grit. I own my perseverance. I own my compass.”

Corporate life rewards identification with the role. Promotions become markers of progress. Authority shapes access, influence, and relationships. By the time an executive reaches the corner office, it can be difficult to distinguish where the role ends and the individual begins.

Executives spend years investing in the next promotion. Duckett suggests they should invest just as deliberately in the qualities that remain when the promotion changes. Those are the attributes that shape how leaders navigate every chapter of their careers, including the ones that unfold after the corner office.

Much has been said about the years of board preparation for CEO successions. But CEOs have to prepare themselves. One is an exercise in organizational continuity, while the other is an exercise in preserving identity when the office no longer belongs to you.

Former GE CEO Jeff Immelt recently wrote about how the phone stopped ringing after he stepped down, a candid reflection on how quickly the privileges attached to the office can recede. Duckett appears to have already anticipated that reality. By treating the CEO role as temporary rather than permanent, she is preparing for leadership’s final transition while still in the job.

Understandably, aspiring CEOs frequently ask what experiences or skills will prepare them to lead an enterprise. Duckett’s comments suggest a different kind of preparation: Build an identity that can withstand every transition an executive career inevitably brings, including the one that eventually takes away the title.

Ruth Umoh
ruth.umoh@fortune.com

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