Advice for boards and top management teams
The articles in this section are based on Leadership Advisor Group’s expertise, built through years of experience improving board and top team effectiveness by addressing processes, governance, and team dynamics and identifying and developing individual leaders' key strengths.
Our ambition is to set the standard and continuously raise the bar for effective board practice and top team performance for companies and foundations together with our clients. Indeed, at Leadership Advisor Group, we are on a mission to make the world better led, led by supporting boards and CEOs.
As generative AI (ChatGPT) is here to stay and most of our clients are new to this, we developed this one-page user guide (early 2023)
Do you know what process to use and topics to include in your board evaluation?
Boards of directors have most likely heard about the EU Taxonomy, but not all are sure what their role in this area should be. The purpose of this article is to help give an understanding of what actions boards might take to ensure companies are prepared.
Is your board up-to-date on how it should help your company with the diversity policy?
Ensuring a successful relationship is a double win, maximizing chances for company success and thereby securing your job!
Are your top execs and board aligned on company risks and how to handle them? For many companies, this is an area ripe for continuous improvement. Part of the board’s role is to oversee this process, ensuring that major risks are identified and mitigated. Companies in which top execs and their boards are aligned through a formal process are more likely to minimize risk.
Does your board know how to engage well with stakeholders and report on this important activity?
Has your company remembered to include in your Annual Report, the right information regarding your 2022 board evaluation?
Celebrate your Corporate Secretaries for their invaluable contributions to the board!
Most reputable companies want to comply with good corporate governance and hence, among other things, do an annual board evaluation. The national codes typically state that the effectiveness of each board member should also be evaluated. However, boards often avoid tackling this part of the evaluation because board members – like everyone else – can feel some insecurity about being personally evaluated. Also, there is uncertainty about how to carry out such a sensitive analysis.
While top leadership teams and boards usually put in a lot of effort benchmarking the company to competitors, only a few boards benchmark themselves against other (competitor) boards.
One of the board’s responsibilities is to help ensure leadership talent, so that the company has the human competencies to execute its strategy. For this reason, the board needs to feel confident that the company is promoting, recruiting, and retaining competent leaders and paving the way for smooth transitions.
Did you know your Board is responsible for having a plan for who can succeed the current CEO in short and long term?
Time after time, board members tell us that too much time is spent during board meetings hearing from the CEO and the CFO or having overly long discussions on small side issues, leaving too little time for strategic discussion. Focus is on the past, on reporting latest financials or on resolving immediate operational issues, at the expense of discussion about the future and about issues that really matter.
As human beings, we tend to stick with what we are used to and what we know works well. The same goes for boards and the company KPIs they monitor.
Is your board or leadership team meeting agenda addressing the key strategic questions?
The benefits of working with an external specialist when doing a board evaluation
Does your board know how well the company purpose, culture, and values are embedded in the organization?
Would you like to find a board role but do not know how, or what you could aim for?
Is this your first board member role? Do you feel like everyone else knows the ropes, and you aren’t sure quite where to contribute or how to add value? Here is some of our advice for first time board members.
Do your Audit, Nomination, Remuneration or other committees have written, updated charters setting out the roles and responsibilities of each committee? Have these been discussed and agreed at board level?
Definition of a Board Charter, and why your board should have one
Are you in charge of organizing your company’s next board evaluation?
In the current environment of rapid change, boards are asked to play an even more crucial role in steering their companies through turbulent times.
Companies don’t always do a great job of describing their boards of directors to the public. Some probably forget to review the texts on their websites and annual reports. Others may not have realized what an important opportunity they are missing.
The board of directors exists to safeguard the company’s and stakeholders’ interests and ensure value creation in the short as well as long term. As part of that role, it is responsible for the company’s strategy and for following up on its execution.
Boards are becoming accustomed to annual evaluations, but they do not always evaluate the Chair
Boards and companies often feel weighed down when handling and reporting on corporate governance
Interested in self-evaluation? Try Online Board Evaluations
Well-aligned with national corporate and foundation/charity governance codes, our board clients usually conduct an external board evaluation every three years. However, most national governance codes recommend that boards perform a self-evaluation in the years between external board evaluations. Therefore, we have developed OnlineBoardEvaluations.com, a tool enabling boards to self-evaluate effectively and effortlessly every year.
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