The CEO and board relationship is ideally a collaborative partnership, grounded in mutual trust and respect.
Yes, ultimately the CEO reports to the board as a whole, and the board has responsibility for hiring and firing the CEO. But ideally, they will function as a collaborative team.
In an effective relationship, each member of the team brings different strengths to the organization. Combined, the team's collective wisdom and life experiences produce good decisions on behalf of the organization.
Understand the board chair's role in the partnership
It is important to note that the board chair is not the “boss” of the CEO. The CEO reports to the board as a whole, not just the board chair.
Typically, the board chair has the most constant communication with the CEO. Much of the success of this partnership is grounded in developing effective ways for the two to communicate and share information efficiently.
When the Governance Committee is working on succession planning for officers, ideally, the CEO should have a lot of say on who will be nominated to the Board Chair position. They are the best judges of who they will work well with, what complementary skills they are looking for in a chair, etc.
BoardOnTrack is designed to help charter school boards and CEO develop a strong working partnership.
BoardOnTrack is designed to help clarify what work belongs to the board, what belongs to the CEO, and how the work of the two entities complements each other to achieve organizational goals for the year.
The CEO Evaluation tool streamlines the process for the CEO to work with the board to define clear goals and have a framework within which to report out regularly, with data, about their progress on annual goals.
Meanwhile, the Board Goals dashboard facilitates committee work and emphasizes the time-driven deadlines to complete individual board-level tasks.
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