The Board-Savvy CEO

"The Board-Savvy CEO" is a “survive-and-thrive” handbook for nonprofit chief executive officers and executives aspiring to become CEOs. Governance expert and author Doug Eadie explains how leaders who build and maintain a close, productive partnership with their boards do a better job of translating vision into practice and achieving organizational stability, innovation, and growth. The author devotes a chapter to each of the three critical functions of a board-savvy CEO: chief board capacity builder; chief governing process designer; and chief governing relationship manager. Eadie explains, in Chapter Two, how the board-savvy CEO (as chief board capacity builder) helps the governing body define and develop its own governing mission; evaluate and implement effective standing committees that mirror the major streams of decision making; and design and adopt processes that enable the board to manage its own performance. He shows in the next chapter how CEOs who wish to be known as board savvy take the lead in designing processes that engage board members in such governing functions as planning, performance monitoring, and external relations so as to heighten their feelings of satisfaction and ownership — qualities that Eadie says make board members more positive and productive governing partners. Pointing out that the board-CEO working relationship is easily frayed, the author describes in Chapter Four how savvy CEOs help their boards assign a committee to monitor and manage the relationship; reach agreement on formal guidelines for CEO interaction and communication; and assure that a process for CEO performance evaluation is carried out annually. "The Board-Savvy CEO" is chock-full of richly detailed, real-world guidance on how to keep board members actively engaged in governing work that makes a real difference in their organization.