Board leadership structure practices and perceptions across public companies and private companies are aligned in certain noteworthy respects and not in others, according to Spencer Stuart’s director survey on board leadership, which surveyed 654 public company directors and 411 private company directors.
Board leadership structure—More than half of public companies have an independent chair, compared to 42% of private companies.
Role differentiation—Public and private company respondents were fairly evenly split in their views on whether the roles/responsibilities of the independent chair and independent lead/presiding director differ, with about 46% characterizing the roles as mostly different, 45% characterizing the roles as the same, and 9% characterizing the roles as completely different.
Stature—Independent chairs are perceived by two-thirds of public company respondents as having more stature than independent lead directors. Comparatively, just 40% of private company directors associated the independent chair role with greater stature.
Board leader effectiveness—Public company director respondents rated their board leaders as effective or somewhat effective at a much higher rate than private company respondents (92% vs. 81%, respectively).
Structure changes—Most public company and private company respondents are not anticipating changes to their board leadership structure within the next 12-18 months (80% and 75%, respectively). Of those anticipating a change, succession planning is the trigger for a majority of public companies and plurality of private companies.
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