IBM has released its 2010 Global Chief Executive Office Study into the lives and pressures of CEOs in the world’s top organisations. IBM calls 2009 the ‘wake up year’ for many CEOs and, as this survey was run in 2004, 2006 and 2008, profiles this year’s performance against past results for comparison.

You can see the full report here.

Research on this scale and into this target audience is rare for free download. In total 1,541 CEOs took place in face-to-face interviews – the research will tell you their full demographics, but suffice to say there’s a broad spectrum of public and private-sector organisations from across the world. Interestingly, 3,600 students were also interviewed (the CEO of tomorrow) and their opinions used to add another dimension to the report. [These ‘views of generation Y’ are being given increasing attention by all the decision makers we speak to – the world is changing so quickly that sometimes only the new generation seem able to keep up...]

In 2010, for the first time, the primary challenge of CEOs was complexity. We probably all know this already – interlinking networks of suppliers and dependent third-parties – but removing or managing complexity isn’t something we see all that commonly as a message in many campaigns. Perhaps this could be a key to aligning your propositions with boardroom priorities.

As an aside, IBM has built a neat assessment tool to benchmark your attitudes against those of the CEOs in the research. In the interests of openness, take a look at the customised report we built for ourselves here!