Rethinking CEO-Chair Dynamics

By Joe Griesedieck

Griesedieck is vice chairman and managing director of Korn Ferry’s Board and CEO Services practice.

July 31, 2025

Years ago, when I was a new CEO at another consulting firm, I spent a week in Boston with the company’s chairman of the board. The trip wasn’t just to hammer out specifics of the job transition. Rather, it was to get to know each other—to understand how the other person thought, how we viewed the company’s current state, and what we wanted to achieve together.

While the trip was time-consuming, it was paramount to setting me up for success in my chief-executive role. It helped me understand the different levels of responsibility and authority the board chairman and I held. And it built a level of transparency and trust that fostered better communication between us from the get-go.

In today’s operating environment, the importance of the relationship between the CEO and the board chair has never been more critical. Beyond being the bridge between the board and top management, this relationship is at the core of strategic alignment. Chairs must simultaneously act as a sounding board and challenge CEOs without threatening their authority. They must keep the CEO apprised of how the board is feeling and—without being overly prescriptive about solutions—deliver tough messages. After all, the worst kind of chair is someone who hasn’t gotten over being a CEO.

Of course, while the relationship may be important, chairs haven’t always been active, and not all CEOs have embraced their help when they have been. To get a glimpse of where chairs and CEOs stand, Korn Ferry’s Board and CEO practice surveyed nearly 200 board members. The good news is that the study—titled Board Chair of the Future—found that a typical board chair sees their role in these uncertain times as a combination of company strategist, CEO mentor, and overall stabilizing force. Forget ushering through approvals: Board chairs are actively shaping the company’s direction, whether it’s the need for adaptability and innovation (singled out by 75 percent of directors in the study) or the adjustments required amid a heightened risk and regulatory environment (cited by 70 percent).

The chair’s help is particularly important when you consider that six in 10 CEOs at public companies are first-timers. Clearly, such newcomers need a chair who is a thought partner—who actively provides oversight, helps with crisis response, and even engages with the public at times. Some CEOs might find this intimidating, but it’s important for them to recognize that the chair’s role is to offer different perspectives and provoke deeper thinking. Simply put, the chair is trying to coach the CEO to be their best.

So how can board chairs foster this type of relationship? Much of it comes down to putting in the time. While some CEOs and chairs speak weekly or monthly, others may touch base daily. Some calls may have specific agendas—say, to discuss tariffs or run a new idea past the board—while others may be more general: What’s keeping you up at night? How do you want the board to deal with tension? And when possible, off-sites or face-to-face get-togethers can greatly improve the company’s chances of success.

Of course, like any relationship, the CEO-chair dynamic is more art than science. Just as some couples have specific date nights while others go out spontaneously, CEOs and chairs need to develop a check-in frequency that works for them. Depending on the specifics of the transition, this may take trial and error, and it may be a bit awkward at first. But at the end of the day, all of that time pays off, because instead of just having good communication, the chair and CEO have something more potent: a great connection.

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