RRA Global Board Culture and Director Behaviors Study

What differentiates a top performing board in 2025?

Welcome to the 2025 Global Board Culture and Director Behaviors Study, an initiative first launched by Russell Reynolds Associates in 2016. This research explores the current dynamics of board operations—focusing on directors' behaviors in the boardroom, the leadership styles of board and committee chairs, and the key topics appearing on board agendas. Based on this robust longitudinal survey data, we identified several notable differentiators for effective and high-performing boards, as well as key director leadership qualities, that span industry, sector, and geography.

In 2025, more than 1,000 global board directors from over 45 countries across various industries participated. Our data highlights the following insights:

• Despite boards spending more time on organizational priorities, they are not seeing impactful results. Engaging in the right mindset and behavior around value creation and risk management, CEO succession, and corporate culture will help board directors add value to organizational outcomes.
  
• More boards are discussing CEO and C-suite leadership succession in tandem. Engaging in evergreen CEO succession discussion and viewing it as a continuous executive team development exercise results in stronger teams that deliver meaningful results.
  
• In response to heightened risks, expectations for boards are growing. Cyber and data security risk, political regulatory risk, and organizational change are top three significant operational risks boards are concerned about – continuing to understand different perspectives and being open to new ideas and ways of doing things will help boards address these issues.
  
• Boards are showing mixed engagement on the topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) and sustainability. DE&I commitments vary: 25% of directors say the board is actively involved in improving organizational DE&I, while 16% say no actions are being taken. Regional differences drive some of this split in behavior and results.  Simultaneously, the top two primary drivers behind organizations’ sustainability approaches are value creation and compliance.

We invite you to explore our detailed research on board performance and effectiveness, director and leadership behaviors, and key board priorities.

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