Association CEO Assessment

Align Goals, Drive Growth: Empowering Boards Through Strategic CEO Assessment

SAMPLE: ASSESSMENT OF ASSOCIATION CEO

Assessing the CEO is one of the board’s primary governance responsibilities and is critical to the success of the chief executive and to the organization as a whole. According to Leading with Intent, chief executives who have formal, written performance evaluations are more satisfied with their jobs.

Assessment benefits both the CEO and the board by providing leadership with the opportunity to clarify expectations, set organizational goals, and improve weaknesses or build on past success.

The Assessment of the Association CEO (AAC) tool aids in the growth and development of your CEO and provides boards the opportunity to evaluate the CEO in four key areas: annual performance goals, core competencies, leadership qualities, and accomplishments and challenges.

The AAC gives both board members and the chief executive the opportunity to provide feedback on the strengths and limitations of the chief executive, thereby helping to ensure that everyone shares common expectations for performance. Participation by the CEO is important to help in the growth of a transparent relationship between the board and chief executive of your organization. The CEO receiveS the same version of the survey as all other evaluators and be informed that their responses will be shown separately in the final report in order to provide a comparative analysis of the results.

Failure to adequately evaluate the CEO can be costly, resulting in mistrust, strained working relationships, ongoing poor performance, and even turnover. In many cases, the outcome of the assessment is a strong endorsement of the executive’s performance, which serves to re-energize and affirm that they— and the organization — are headed in the right direction.