Available Now · Launched October 13, 2026

CEO
Cadence™

The Inner Work of Becoming a Cadence-Based Leader

Most leadership books tell you what to do differently. CEO Cadence is about who you need to become — the internal discipline, the emotional architecture, and the deliberate rhythm that lets great leaders stay effective across the full arc of a tenure.

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CEO Cadence by David Johnston — front cover

Sample Chapters

"One CEO described this as living behind glass."

Two complete chapters from the manuscript are free to read. Chapter 10 — The CEO and Isolation — on the structural loneliness of the role and what it takes to lead with presence from inside it. Chapter 20 — The CEO and Crisis — on holding your cadence when everything is at stake.

Read Chapter 10 → Read Chapter 20 →

Available nowPaperback, hardcover and Kindle — or a signed first-run copy from the author.

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About the Book

Leadership runs on cadence — a sustainable internal rhythm most leaders never develop deliberately.

The CEO role is unlike any other leadership position. The decisions are different. The accountability is different. The isolation is different. And the internal demands — what the role asks of you as a person, not just as an executive — are rarely described honestly in the leadership literature that surrounds it.

CEO Cadence is written from inside that experience. It draws on the author's work as an executive coach to sitting CEOs, on leadership research across psychology, organizational theory, and executive development, and on direct engagement with the questions that most leadership books sidestep.

It explores the full arc of the CEO role — the early phase, where identity reshapes itself around new authority; the middle years, where sustained pressure begins to reveal the limits of strategy and willpower; and the late stage, where the question of legacy and relevance requires more than operational excellence to answer well.

This is a book for CEOs who want to lead more deliberately — not louder, not faster, but with greater clarity and internal stability.

About the Author

David Johnston, Executive Coach and Author

David Johnston

MBA in Leadership · Certified Executive Coach (CEC) · Certified Health Executive (CHE)

David Johnston is an executive coach, leadership educator, and author whose work focuses on the psychological and internal dimensions of CEO leadership. He works with a small number of CEOs and senior executives through his practice, Human Capital Development Inc. He teaches leadership and coaching principles and delivers workshops to organizations.

Over more than two decades, he has worked across healthcare, government, engineering, manufacturing, and the military — in both private and non-profit organizations — first in senior leadership, and now as an executive coach. He is a Certified Health Executive (CHE) through the Canadian College of Health Leaders and holds an MBA in Leadership and a Graduate Certificate in Executive Coaching from Royal Roads University.

He lives and works in rural Ontario, Canada.

Readers who want to work the book’s capabilities with a coach — rather than only read about them — can engage David directly through CEO Cadence.

Speaking

Conference and Executive Keynotes

David speaks to executive audiences on the hidden psychology of CEO leadership, the emotional architecture of the C-suite, and the internal practices that sustain clarity across the full arc of an executive tenure. Topics are drawn directly from the research and frameworks in CEO Cadence.

View speaking topics →

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Occasional notes from the author — new excerpts, tools from the book, and where to hear David speak. No spam, and you can unsubscribe any time.

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