Chairmen and Chief Executives: an Exploration of Their Relationship

ABSTRACT This longitudinal study of the relations between 20 general managers and their chairmen in the UK National Health Service has wider implications despite its distinctive setting. It showed that the two roles are very dependent upon each other, and occupy overlapping domains, so that what each can do is considerably affected by the other's behaviour. the chairman has more power to determine their relative domains so that studies of individual chief executives should take account of this relationship. the ways in which both chairmen and general managers played their roles differed widely. One reason for the differences in the chairmen's roles was the wide variation in the time that they gave to the job. Different types of relationship are described. the most common was that of partners where the two complemented each other. the study crosses different literatures: corporate management, leadership, role theory and managerial work and behaviour. Its main concern is with managerial work and behaviour but it also has some implications for corporate management.