Maureen Bujno is a managing director in Deloitte LLP’s Center for Board Effectiveness, and Benjamin Finzi and Vincent Firth are managing directors at Deloitte Consulting LLP. This post is based on a Deloitte memorandum by Ms. Bujno, Mr. Finzi, Mr. Firth, Kathy Lu, and Mark Lipton.
Introduction
To be a CEO today is to have one of the most complex and demanding—not to mention visible—jobs in the world. Beyond the scope of their business, CEOs and the organizations they lead have increasingly significant and more transparent influence at multiple levels—societal, cultural, environmental, political—affecting vast numbers of stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, customers, and citizens. Meanwhile, the world around them is in constant motion.
Given the weight of responsibility that rests on their shoulders, it’s no wonder that CEOs, when observed from a distance, are often depicted in near-heroic terms. It’s also not surprising that CEOs, when engaged in more intimate conversations about their role, are often keenly interested in finding help to validate their models of the business environment and to develop their vision of the future.
But where can CEOs find the sounding board they need without falling short of the extraordinary abilities that people find reassuring to attribute to them? One possible answer lies in the recognition that CEOs also have bosses: the boards who hire them, evaluate them, set their pay, and sometimes fire them. In fact, as one CEO told us, “The board relationship is really the most critical factor in [a CEO’s] success.”
