Leading the Board: The Six Disciplines of World Class Chairmen

Citation

Nanji, M. (2010), "Leading the Board: The Six Disciplines of World Class Chairmen", Personnel Review, Vol. 39 No. 2, pp. 259-261. https://doi.org/10.1108/00483481011017453

Over the past decade board configurations and roles have continued to evolve as boards have come under constant governance scrutiny. Leading the board by Andrew Kakabadse and Nada Kakabadse is well positioned to address the apex of the organization by examining a key role – the chairman – that has not been extensively researched and little known yet is of significant importance. Increased board separation between CEO and chairman and the extremely important influence of the Chairman's role makes this reading essential for all executives with board responsibility (the word chairman, which is more common, is used to represent chairwoman with no intention to signify gender dominance).

A common view of a chairman is one of an authoritative figure rubber stamping board decisions, detached from the organization, not publicly visible and in the shadow of the CEO – coined by the authors as “a passenger in the car”. This perception is corrected and the authors have opened up the black box of the role and its significance to organizations. Through this lonely chair the chairman demonstrates the span and boundary of control, the influence‐exerted to the external world, actors on the board and orchestration of the vision. The authors have posited the reading into six disciplines of the chairman through which have opened the pre‐requisites of a world class chairman and simultaneously addressed the growing significance this role plays. The six disciplines which are worth listing include: “delineating boundaries” in relation to the CEO‐chairman roles, contribution from other board members, information symmetries and agenda setting; “sense making” developing board empathy, removing any dysfunctionality creating trust and openness; “interrogating the argument” fostering constructive conflict and avoiding group think within decision process; “influencing outcomes” by way of shared objectives and achieving alignment by drawing on persuasion and ingratiation experience; “living the values” of trust and integrity and clarifying the corporate social responsibilities (CSR) of the organization; “developing the board” using profiling techniques and ensuring the board members develop through the learning curve.

By citing a series on extracts from interviews conducted with senior board representatives, across a host of industries, the authors have brought life into the six disciplines. These disciplines provide a clear framework, are self explanatory and in order to substantiate practicality the author's have embedded illustrations such as the “hour glass” to explain delineation and elasticity of boundaries, observatory grids to capture behavioral dynamics, checklists for ethical measurements and so forth. To avoid narrowing the scope the authors, in particular areas where culture and industry influences may have a bearing, draw on powerful empirical research and comparative data from a global context. Concluding the book the authors provide a useful chapter presenting the application of these disciplines at work by drawing examples from literature and a wealth of real case interview repositories.

Arguments presented by the authors, the sequencing in which the book has developed its themes, clear articulation using practical suggestions on an extremely important topical subject in an area where not much research has been done, all provide for a very well written piece of work. The books implicit goal of opening up the Chairman's canvas and providing cardinal tips, in which through this position, board effectiveness is driven have more than adequately been met. As the authors put it “the book is an attempt to bring some clarity to the role of the chairman the twenty‐first century”. Notwithstanding the wealth of experience the authors bring by way of years of research on boards crystallizes into the summarized actions and the contextual frameworks that serve as useful reference, “interviews serve as reality checks on how the theory stands up in messy reality and challenges that face chairman on a daily basis”.

The book develops well into ways for creating a balanced board but could have been better substantiated by expanding on the roles and expectations of the board members. For instance there is mention of the SID and LID (senior/lead independent directors), which is a growing trend in boards and due to their importance in shaping board decisions a more detailed analysis of their interactions with the chairman and importantly how the chairman is able to apply this added level of independence. The same would hold for the chairman‐CEO relations, although significant research already exists, expanding in more detail at each stage of the six disciplines the differences between each of these roles would have further amplified the significance of the chairman. In this way the differences in the leadership echoed by each would have transparently surfaced removing any cause for ambiguity especially for supporters of CEO duality.

The notion that is being discussed is post ante, based on a chairman already in place and how then do they lead and role development and maturity cycles over time. As there is a wealth of information on role dissemination, in each of the disciplines, which result in effectiveness, it can get overwhelming. One would expect that if there was no way of prioritization, which typically would be the case due to the interrelated nature and several criterion being behavioral in nature, a section on selecting the right chairman would help. In this section either articulating the selection criterion or taking a sample of chairman and profiling patterns in their background and leadership traits to dimension commonality. This could be carried out by way of a quantitative study on Chairman's and looking at various demographics of good and bad chairmanship through which various analyses can be deduced. Adding further to country and cultural contexts, which could have been discussed, considering the research did interview Chairman's globally. Finally matching the traits of commonality with the disciplines would further add to reader assimilation and simplify prioritization providing another solid base to the already rich research.

The board plays the integral part of ensuring the corporate governance charter is being adhered to which include, and not limited to, monitoring, control, strategic direction setting. Representing various stakeholders the independent nature of the board and importantly that of the chairman is being performed to ensure the right balance is struck between the agency, stewardship and resource dependent forces. Although the authors have touched on governance in for instance the context executive remuneration a stronger weaving of governance literature would have been able to support each of the six disciplines. This would have provided further richness and credibility to the importance of chairmanship. The expansion of governance literature, a vast subject that secures an important place within board deliberations, would open the risk of losing the central theme and therefore would have to be selectively introduced with only the key notes referenced.

My personal observation of boards is that the level of experience the chairman has gained by way of technical and practical application combined with the ability to use rationality as a decision basis and yet supplement with tact knowledge, intuition, power, and organization politics. Ultimately being able to orchestrate the vision and set direction in a non‐confrontational and shared leadership manner. This art can only be mastered by a select few, in my opinion, as it takes several ingredients to come to play to form the required attributes.

The authors, with their profound subject matter expertise and wealth of board research repository, have successfully been able to articulate what it takes to lead. This is achieved in a simple and enjoyable fashion by way of practical annotations and remarks from leading board figures. The book is a must read for board members, for senior non executive management who in their own light are leading top teams and can apply these disciplines, and for human resource professionals who are specialized in leadership development and selection.