How to manage your CEO's performance

How your board can manage your CEO so they deliver public value.

Your board is responsible for ensuring your entity delivers public value.

To do this, it is important that you manage your CEO so they perform well.

There are 2 aspects to managing your CEO’s performance:

  1. Set expectations
  2. Assess performance

Set expectations

Here are some tools and approaches you can use to set expectations for your CEO’s performance.

Assess performance

We recommend your board formally assesses your CEO’s performance at least once a year. Use the key performance indicators and performance plan you created.

As part of the process, your CEO should also assess their own performance.

Unacceptable CEO behaviour

Your board must address poor behaviour by your CEO.

Poor behaviour can:

  • diminish your entity’s productivity
  • increase its risks
  • cause good employees to leave
  • make it hard to attract replacement employees.

If you don’t address poor behaviours, their impact can escalate quickly.

CEOs exhibiting poor behaviours may be good at concealing them from those they report to. Ensure you use a variety of methods to investigate.

Here are some of the common types of poor behaviour to look out for.

Results and actions from assessing a CEO’s performance

Here are 6 ways you can summarise a CEO’s performance and actions your board may take as a result.

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