BoardOutlook’s global data shows that only 20% of directors say their chair provides great individual feedback.
There is an uncomfortable story here: most directors have no idea how well they’re doing at any point in time.
The usual explanation for this is time. But blaming a lack of time assumes that feedback is nice to have, once more important things are covered.
The problem is that many Chairs, and directors themselves, don’t think feedback is needed.
The logic runs that directors are senior, accomplished and experienced people. Often they sit on multiple boards. The Chair is more like a first among equals than their manager. And in that world, feedback feels unnecessary, sometimes awkward and occasionally even offensive. If someone isn’t pulling their weight, surely it will become obvious? And if they’re doing well, surely they already know?
The fact is, these assumptions are nonsense.
Unfortunately, experience often creates blind spots. And the more senior a person, the worse their blind spots - i.e. the more likely they are to assume their contribution is landing as intended. So the director celebrated for decisiveness in their executive career doesn’t realise that the same quality reads as dominance in a boardroom - where they’re one voice among ten. Too many boards are full of intelligent people confidently misreading the room.
This absolutely isn’t a character flaw. It’s simply how all human systems behave when information is missing.
What’s more, boards are not collections of independent experts. They are systems that meet intermittently. Directors fly in once a month, perform intensely for a few hours, then disappear back into other demanding roles. Between board meetings, context fades and assumptions drift. What felt clear last quarter can quietly dissolve.
And no one re-sets the calibration. Boards rarely pause to re-align expectations.
For example, what does a good contribution look like on this board? How hard should challenge be pushed? When does oversight become interference? Is this board hungry for debate or allergic to it?
These questions have answers, but they tend to sit in the Chair's head, in unspoken norms, and patterns.
The result? Directors do what sensible people do in ambiguous environments. They infer, watch what gets rewarded, notice what gets shut down and adjust accordingly. When in doubt, they play it safe.
In the absence of feedback about what good looks like, this is how boards slowly erode themselves. For example, the director who might challenge harder doesn’t. Equally, the director with a different perspective remains silent. Dominant voices keep speaking up, while quieter experts stay quiet. And this in turn can mean that underperformance doesn’t get addressed and high performance doesn’t get acknowledged. Even though everyone is acting rationally, the system is quietly failing.
Ultimately, this is a stewardship problem.
The chair may not be a manager, but they are the custodian of the board system. This means they’re responsible for maintaining the shared understanding that allows the board to function. And as everyone knows, systems without feedback can’t improve - indeed it’s worse, they stagnate.
Here’s the irony: boards pride themselves on challenge, rigour and being able to handle uncomfortable truths. Yet many Chairs can’t bring themselves to tell a director, privately and constructively, how they are actually showing up.
Feedback builds something boards say they want more of: trust. Trust that the truth will be spoken. And trust that silence doesn’t mean approval.
It works both ways. Chairs who never give feedback rarely receive it. And Chairs who don’t receive feedback are flying blind themselves. The 20% statistic is not just about directors missing input. It is about Chairs operating without a clear feedback loop.
The fix is relatively simple. Some Chairs schedule brief, annual one-to-ones. Others embed bilateral feedback into board evaluations. Others simply make a habit of naming what they observe after each meeting. For example, when something lands well, when it doesn’t and when a different approach would help.
Feedback should be expected and even boring. It shouldn’t be a dramatic event that happens once every three years and leaves everyone slightly traumatised.
Chairs who give regular feedback report stronger boards because the system has better information. The vast majority - eighty percent - of directors don’t have that information, and instead are inferring expectations from vibes. That isn’t respectful of senior people - indeed it’s verging on negligent.