Episode 6: Featuring Mike Humphries
Your CEO holds your organization’s future in their hands—yet they likely receive the least comprehensive performance evaluation of any executive. Most boards focus narrowly on KPIs and operating objectives, missing the nuanced competencies that truly define effective CEO leadership. In this episode, Kim Bohr sits down with SparkEffect Board Chair and CEO Mike Humphries to reveal why traditional evaluation approaches fall short and what boards should be measuring instead.
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In This Episode
- Why most CEO evaluations are unintentionally superficial, despite boards’ best intentions
- The critical importance of CEO buy-in through co-creation of the evaluation process
- How expanding feedback beyond the board reveals hidden warning signs in executive leadership
- The difference between board-CEO relationships and CEO-executive team dynamics—and why both perspectives matter
- Essential CEO competencies beyond operational performance: adaptability, critical thinking, stakeholder leadership, and more
- Why independent third-party evaluations create fairer, more honest feedback loops
- The power of longitudinal data in tracking CEO development and organizational health
Episode Highlights
[01:03] – The paradox: Why the most important role gets the least rigorous evaluation
[05:44] – The cost of excluding CEOs from their own evaluation design
[10:27] – Warning signs boards miss when focusing only on “hitting the numbers”
[16:28] – Beyond KPIs: Adaptability, character, and other essential CEO competencies
[20:34] – The case for independent third-party evaluations
[24:09] – How longitudinal analysis reveals growth patterns invisible in single assessments
[26:39] – The loneliness of the CEO role and the value of honest feedback
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HR Checklist: Elevating CEO Performance
Your essential guide to selecting the right evaluation partner and preparing for a comprehensive CEO assessment that goes beyond financial metrics.
About Our Guest
Mike Humphries serves as Board Chair and Chief Executive Officer of SparkEffect. Since joining the organization in 2001, he has brought extensive expertise in finance, technology, and administration from his background as a successful entrepreneur and business executive. Over more than two decades, Mike has served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards, working extensively with enterprise and nonprofit leaders. His unique perspective spans both governance and operational leadership, positioning him to guide organizations through the complex challenges of executive evaluation and development.
About Courage to Advance
Courage to Advance features leaders who refuse the tradeoff between performance and humanity. Host Kim Bohr talks with executives and operators who design teams and systems where people can do their best work, and where organizations can bend without breaking.
Courage to Advance is produced by SparkEffect. New episodes drop every Tuesday.
