Board-CEO Relationship
Top-Flight Performance Won’t Keep the Relationship With Your Board Healthy
When I walked in Rich’s office for our weekly project review meeting, I found him slumped at his desk looking distraught. When I asked him what’d happened, he just said “take a look,” handing me a form. It was the annual performance evaluation his board had performed a couple of days ago. Scanning the document, I couldn’t fathom his distress since his scores were uniformly high – in fact, superb. That is, until I reached the bottom and saw the conclusion, which said in so many words, “You do a great job, but we find working with you impossible.” He … Read the rest
CEO Leadership on the Governance Front: Reflections on an Emerging New Model
This is how the chief executive officer of a large, urban public transit system responded to my question about engaging his board in the annual budget preparation process in a one-on interview kicking off a board development project a decade ago.
“What’s the process for engaging my board members in shaping the annual budget document before taking action on it? I’m not sure what you mean by that question. As CEO, I’m accountable for getting a complete, carefully prepared budget to the board at least six weeks before the end of the fiscal year. My board’s accountable for doing a … Read the rest
A Rock-Solid Board President-CEO Leadership Team at Work at GCRTA
In the video interview we recently recorded, Rev. Charles Lucas, Board President, and India Birdsong, General Manager/CEO, of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority describe the close, positive, and highly productive partnership they’ve developed. It is indicative of a striking development in the rapidly evolving field of public transit governance: the recognition that a really solid board chair-CEO leadership team is critical to the CEO’s success, to the authority’s performance, and to its image in the community. GCRTA is in the vanguard of the growing number of public transit authorities led by dynamic chair-CEO duos.
This recognition is a latecomer … Read the rest
What’s in Your Board Chair’s Compensation Package?
I’ll never forget walking into a transit authority’s board room several years ago. I found the board chair – a highly influential attorney – fuming. When I asked what was wrong, he handed me a clipping from the community affairs section of the local paper, saying “read this and you’ll see.” The piece was a glowing review of the authority’s new agreement with the local three-campus community college system – providing frequent, convenient bus service to students. I couldn’t see what the problem was until I got near the end of the piece, when I read a long quote from … Read the rest
How Transit CEO-Aspirants Can Demonstrate Board-Savviness to Search Committees
A major ongoing theme of www.boardsavvytransitceo.com has been preparing executive team members who are what we call CEO-aspirants to build productive, enduring partnerships with their new board. As our readers well know, a shaky board-CEO working relationship is virtually certain to dramatically shorten a CEO’s tenure if it persists. Well-designed training programs can be helpful in preparing CEO-aspirants to meet the partnership building challenge once they take the helm. However. in my professional opinion no one is better positioned to transform executives into board-savvy CEO-aspirants than the CEO herself, wearing her mentoring hat. You’ll recall that our November 4 post … Read the rest
WeGo Public Transit’s Steve Bland: A Consummate Board-Savvy CEO in Action
As you’ll learn from the video interview I recently recorded with Steve Bland, Chief Executive Officer of WeGo Public Transit in Nashville, Steve is a veritable master of the high-stakes, tremendously complex, and rapidly evolving field of public transit governance. Over the course of his quarter-century at the helm of four transit authorities, Steve has demonstrated that he’s in the forefront of a growing number of transit CEOs who make governance – particularly the partnership with their board – a top tier chief executive priority. These really “board-savvy” transit CEOs are firmly committed to strong board leadership that goes well … Read the rest
Joanna M. Pinkerton Leads a Panel Discussion on “Building a Solid Board-CEO Partnership”
I’m pleased to share the new video interview that our colleague Joanna M. Pinkerton, President/CEO of the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA), recently recorded for www.boardsavvytransitceo.com. Joanna leads a panel discussion on my and Dave Stackrow’s new book, Building a Solid Board-CEO Partnership: A Practical Guidebook for Transit Board Members, CEOs, and CEO-Aspirants. The panelists are Jeff Arndt, President and CEO, VIA Metropolitan Transit Authority (San Antonio); Steve Bland, CEO of Nashville MTA; and Nat Ford, CEO of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority. After I describe the book’s intended audience and takeaways, and explain why Dave and I wrote the … Read the rest
Your Board Chair: a Primo Stakeholder You Neglect at Your Peril
The special board work session had been scheduled to consider a key recommendation coming out of the daylong board-CEO-executive team governance retreat three weeks earlier: replacing the board’s dysfunctional silo committees (e.g., paratransit services) with committees aligned with the board’s broad governing functions (e.g., strategic and operational planning). Not long into the session, the CEO realized that her preparation had been fatally flawed. When five particularly obstreperous board members launched a full-bore attack on the recommended structure, the CEO expected the board chair to join her in beating back the attack. Alas, he sat back quietly, leaving her alone at … Read the rest
Your CEO Mindset is Key to Successfully Partnering With Your Board
A staple of my one-on-one governance coaching sessions with transit CEOs in recent years has been the critical role that I call “Mindset” plays in building and maintaining a close, positive, productive and enduring board-CEO partnership. What am I talking about? In a nutshell, Mindset is how you, as your authority’s chief executive officer, picture yourself vis a vis your transit board. Experience has taught me that if you bring the wrong mindset to the relationship with your board, it probably won’t matter what other partnership building steps you take (for example, reaching agreement with board members on guidelines for … Read the rest
The Urgent Need for Practical Governance Guidance: CEO Success Depends on It!
A recent executive team work session I facilitated included at least four executives who appeared to be on the chief executive career track – who were what we call “CEO-aspirants.” The subject of our work session was the role of executives and senior managers in supporting the authority’s governance process, with special attention to the role of executives who’d been assigned to serve as “Chief Staff Liaisons” to the board’s standing committees. Several of the questions I was asked during our six hours together only reinforced what I’d already learned in countless similar sessions over the years: Transit CEO-aspirants and … Read the rest
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