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The corporate world kicked off December with two big CEO departures.

And both departures share an important commonality that almost no corporate executive can overcome, particularly in a bull market: Their company's stock price was in the basement.

Stellantis (STLA) CEO Carlos Tavares quit on Sunday following a clash with the company's board. Meanwhile, Intel (INTC) CEO Pat Gelsinger retired on Sunday in a move that was not entirely up to him.

So far this year, Stellantis stock has lost 47%; Intel stock is down over 50%.

And this in a year where the S&P 500 is up over 25%.

No matter the track record of the CEO or the soundness of a turnaround plan, it is hard to underperform the S&P 500 by 60-plus percentage points in a single year and retain the benefit of the doubt from your board of directors. To wit, 2024 is pacing to have a record number of CEOs out of a job.

Both executives were longtime industry leaders who had built their reputations over decades, navigating the ebbs and flows of the auto and semiconductor industries, respectively.

Both men were tasked with trying to stabilize and turn around legacy brands facing existential challenges.

And now, both are out of a job.

Reporting from Reuters on Monday suggested Tavares's split with his board of directors came over a turnaround plan the board felt was too focused on cost cuts. Gelsinger's schism with his board emerged, among other things, over the scale of investments that may never pan out for Intel, a source told Yahoo Finance.

But as Michael Farr, chief market strategist for Hightower Advisors, told Yahoo Finance's Hamza Shaban on Monday, "If a company’s figurative boat is sinking while most others are enjoying a rising tide, corrective action must be taken by the CEO and or the Board."

Over the last decade, however, the idea of shareholder primacy has come under some scrutiny as the ESG movement put particular pressure on the idea that corporations should serve shareholder interests over everything else, with the stock price as the scoreboard for the company. And, of course, for the CEO.

In 2019, for instance, the Business Roundtable announced nearly 200 CEOs had signed a new statement of purpose saying companies will be led "for the benefit of all stakeholders — customers, employees, supplier, communities and shareholders."