01/18/2023

Eight Questions to Ask Before Selecting a New Board Leader

Board leadership is more important than ever

Today’s corporate boards are under a lot of scrutiny. They must respond to activist shareholders, concerned employees, community members and others in a hyper-sensitive political environment. They’re also tasked with ensuring diversity in their organizations, as well as their own ranks. Board leadership is more important — and urgent — than ever.

Unfortunately, our collective experience — the four of us have interacted with well over a fifth of the governing boards of the Fortune 1000 — indicates that many boards don’t have a thoughtful and disciplined process for selecting, evaluating, compensating or removing a board leader. Nor do they have enough clarity on which responsibilities belong to the chief executive versus the non-executive board chair or lead director.

Without such a process, boards suffer from fractious oversight or even misdirection as their leaders fail to sufficiently align and focus them on the firm’s strategies and opportunities.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Harvard Business Review.