Executive health: Building strength, managing risks

Executive Overview CEOs and senior executives can have a positive impact on their firms, creating value and thus contributing to the wealth of their nations. Therefore, safeguarding executives' health is of concern to all stakeholders in the organization. We present an executive health model and define executive health as physical, psychological, spiritual, and ethical well-being. There is a collective interest in enhancing and maintaining the health of executives as key organizational leaders. This special issue on Executive Health includes articles, book reviews, research briefs, a Country Close-Up, and an Executive Voice interview addressing strength factors that enhance executive health and health risk factors that concern executives' vulnerabilities. The four health risk factors for executives examined in this article are the Achilles Heel, loneliness of command, work demands and overload, and crises and failures. By building on strengths and managing health risks, executives may enhance their own health and the health of their organizations.