Assessment of the Chief Executive (ACE)

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Assessing the chief executive 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 chief executive and the board by providing you with the opportunity to clarify expectations, set organizational goals, and improve weaknesses or build on past success.

BoardSource’s Assessment of the Chief Executive (ACE) tool helps you foster the growth and development of your CEO and organization and enables your board to evaluate the chief executive’s performance in four key areas: annual performance goals, core competencies, leadership qualities, and accomplishments and challenges.

Our easy-to-use Assessment of the Chief Executive tool gives board members the opportunity to provide feedback on the strengths and limitations of the CEO, thereby helping to ensure that everyone shares common expectations for performance. The ACE also includes a self-evaluation component. Additionally, you may include senior staff or direct reports as evaluators. Please note that if any staff take the survey, their responses will be shared in the aggregate with the board member responses. Segregating the responses by role (board vs. staff) is available for an additional fee of $250.

Failure to adequately evaluate the chief executive 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. Read here about how to conduct a chief executive performance assessment in 10 steps.