Employ and support a CEO

The board-chief executive interrelationship is critical to governance success.

The relationship between a board and chief executive should be approached as a partnership in which each respects the other’s roles, responsibilities and prerogatives.

Sport and recreation organisations are generally small, making the likelihood of developing chief executive candidates internally relatively low. This forces external recruitment.

Put bluntly, most governing boards could not operate without the services of a chief executive. When this relationship sours, both parties suffer. Various dimensions of this relationship are explored in this section to help boards and their chief executives secure a strong working relationship.

• Does the board really want a ‘chief executive’?
• Finding the right chief executive
• The board-chief executive relationship
• Define and delegate
• The chair-chief executive relationship
• Evaluating the chief executive’s performance
• Conflict between the chief executive and the board
• Questions