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The company hires a new CHRO. The CEO introduces them like they've found the missing gear in the leadership machine. The board nods in relief. The executive team exhales.
And then, month by month, the narrative starts to shift.
Around month nine, the CEO starts offering compliments that land a little oddly. Around month 12, the tone tightens. And by month 15, the question isn't coded anymore: Are we getting the strategic partnership that we need?
This is part one of a two-part series naming the quiet pattern that ends CHRO tenures without a headline, without a blowup, and without a clean post-mortem. Today is the diagnosis. We unpack why this pattern exists and why it catches even experienced CHROs off guard.
The data is stark: 31% of first-time CHROs are fired in their first 18 months. 52% are fired within a year of a new CEO being appointed. The CHRO thinks they're doing a good job. The system is grading them against a job description that was never spoken.
What You'll Learn
The enterprise context that's changed:
- Strategy windows are shorter, margin pressure is higher
- Execution speed has become a competitive advantage
- Boards have less tolerance for slow-motion operating models
- What CEOs need from CHROs has changed, even when the language hasn't
Why the strategy gap exists:
- CFO and COO roles are standardized, CHRO expectations are all over the map
- "Strategic" means a dozen different things to different CEOs
- CHROs get hired into undefined versions and gravity takes over
- The CEO says strategic, the CHRO hears make HR better, but the CEO means see the business in systems
The boardroom diagnostic:
- The CEO opens with narrative, CFO sharpens with margin and cash, operators layer in execution risk
- If the CHRO talks about engagement trends and time to fill, they're running a parallel narrative
- Parallel narratives get trimmed first when the clock runs out
Four faulty assumptions that keep this pattern alive:
- Delivering results automatically creates strategic credibility (early wins set the altitude of the role, you build credibility as an operator and get evaluated as an architect)
- Strategic is a shared word that will align over time (ambiguity never stays neutral, it becomes muscle memory)
- Experience protects you (it doesn't, prior success isn't portable unless you renegotiate the value equation)
- The CHRO role has the same enterprise ceiling as the CFO (it doesn't, CHRO expectations depend entirely on the CEO)
Four diagnostic questions:
- Is our business strategy inside the business model or sitting next to it? (Being in the room isn't being inside the model)
- Are we rewarding operational reliability over strategic authorship? (Reliability becomes a ceiling)
- Are we evaluating the CHRO on enterprise outcomes or on how well HR runs? (CFOs are evaluated on enterprise metrics, CHROs on departmental metrics)
- Are we mistaking activity for leverage? (Finance had external forcing functions, HR didn't)
Four execution traps:
- Confusing trust with influence (trust earns access, influence changes outcomes)
- Waiting for permission to operate at enterprise level (no one's going to give it to you)
- Over-delivering operationally to comp
Support the show
Resources
- My Talent Sherpa: mytalentsherpa.com
- Talent Sherpa Substack: talentsherpa.substack.com
- Scott Morris / Propulsion AI: getpropulsion.ai
- Dripify: try.dripify.com/talentsherpa
