We intuitively know that your effectiveness as Board Chair directly correlates to overall board performance. Well now there is some data to back up that assumption as it relates to board culture!

BoardSource just released its June 2021 Leading With Intent report which shares the latest results of non-profit board practices around the country. In this study, 820 particpants completed the study consisting of 689 chief executives and 131 board chairs. While the report is filled with interesting data, I am going to share the results of just one area - the correlation between the performance of the board chair and board culture.

In summary, when chief executives rated the performance of their board chair as high, they tended to rate the board higher than average across all areas of board culture. While the data cannot prove causation, it does show a strong association. The chart below represents the different areas of board chair performance ( left column) that were evaluated by chief executives and the assessment of two key areas of board culture (top red row). Since this chart might be difficult to read, click here to open the chart separately.