By Emma Maslen
Successful leaders assemble trusted boards of advisors who broaden their perspectives, challenge thinking, and support development. Here’s how to leverage your network for growth.
A Personal Board mirrors the role of a corporate board, helping the executives deliver on the company’s vision. The crucial word in that statement is help. The corporate board is there to guide, advise, and govern the executives; to ensure that the company’s goals are realistic, achievable, and measurable; to consider the risks; and to track the company’s progress against its objectives. But it is the executives who set the goals and drive the day-to-day initiatives.
This is a good way to think about your Personal Board. You are the CEO of your personal brand, the one who sets the goals and formulates the strategy for achieving them. Your board is there to support you, offering oversight to help you stay focused and on track as you grow.
Boards provide accountability
A corporate board holds the executive team to account. Corporate boards are assembled to achieve company success – to ensure everyone is striving towards the targeted achievement. In a corporate setting, if the company’s executives had set goals and milestones, which the company subsequently failed to achieve, the board would be expected to review with the executives:
- Were the goals unrealistic?
- Was the market incorrectly assessed?
- Did any of the executives lack the necessary skills?
- Was the workforce motivated to achieve the goals?
- Were there any external mitigating factors?
Imagine you had spoken at length to a member of your Personal Board about applying for funding, and the next time you met up with one of them, that person asked, ‘‘Did you apply?’ If you replied no, how do you think that would sit with your Personal Board after their investment in time with you? You might have a good reason, which would be accepted by your advisors, but what if you only had a poor excuse? What if you didn’t apply because you lacked confidence or missed the funding application deadline? Verbalising goals to others, and those people holding you to account, is one of the key benefits of a Personal Board. Whatever goal you set, knowing that your board members will be checking in on your progress will give you extra motivation to achieve that goal.
Boards manage risk and deploy mitigation strategies
Corporate boards are there to avoid risk and to govern. One of the principal responsibilities of a corporate board is to ensure that risks are fully assessed and subsequent mitigation strategies deployed to safeguard the integrity of the company.
These responsibilities are equally applicable to Personal Boards. For example, say you are applying for a new job. There are many risk elements to consider, including how you present yourself, whether you are qualified for the role, and whether you have gaps in your experience. This is where a few conversations with trusted advisors can help with the preparation for applying, interviewing, and transitioning into the role.
Boards strategise with facts, not emotion
Corporate boards are single-minded in pursuit of their objectives. When we discuss our careers and life goals, the stories we tell ourselves and others are often laced with emotion. Good corporate boards leave emotion at the door – facts, numbers, and results are the order of the day.
This is useful on a personal level. Stepping outside of yourself and concentrating on the facts, i.e., on what you know and don’t know, ensures that you aren’t adversely influenced by the stories in your head, the hearsay, or the office gossip. Instead, you can concentrate on working with the facts and create strategies to understand what you don’t know.
When you enter a transition period, for example, it’s easy to make assumptions or even distort reality. The world is a fast-moving, emotional place, so it’s important to take the time to stop and think about what is real. Taking time with one of your advisors allows you to pause for breath and to consider the reality of where you are.
If chosen wisely, your Personal Board members will be slightly removed from your situation, so they can be naturally objective, as a non-executive board director is meant to provide an independent voice.
Boards respectfully challenge
You don’t need any yes-men (or yes-women) on your Personal Board. Among the worst boards in corporate history, their refusal or inability to challenge the most influential executives was their downfall. Think of Enron (fraud), Barings (fraud), and BP (safety).
With any of these corporate failures, there have been signals to the board that something untoward was going on in the company. Sometimes these were innocent mistakes. Often, executives lacked the confidence to speak up. Invariably, there was a dominant personality involved.
The board’s role is to keep the company on the straight and narrow – to keep it true to its internal goals, while understanding and assessing the external risks. If the board is not satisfied with the answers from its executives, it needs to respectfully challenge the executive team and explore their perspectives and opinions.
The key here is to respectfully challenge. For Personal Boards, this is equally important. Your Personal Board is not there to criticise you, disagree with you, or force you to change your strategy. It is there to provide checks and balances, to advise on alternative perspectives, and to ensure that you have considered the alternatives.
The respect here should work both ways – you should value their checks and perspectives, thank them for their opinions, and ensure you consider their counsel.
The diversity of corporate boards
There is one remaining aspect of the success of the highest-achieving boards: diversity. Boards are assembled with people of different levels and types to cover all angles when governing a company. Historically, though, this has focused on diversity of skills and experience.
In the twenty-first century, there has been a concerted effort to increase the diversity of corporate boards, away from the traditional preserve of the white, upper-class male. Why? The more diverse the board, the better the company will be governed and the faster it will grow.
Companies lacking diversity are being left behind. More diverse boards make better decisions. The same applies to Personal Boards. Diversity is important in every sense – culture, race, religion, experience, skills, gender, age, sexual persuasion, and so on.
If you are taking the time to purposefully assemble the best and brightest people to accelerate your achievement, you must ensure diversity is at the heart of your selection process.
Key takeaways
Consider the parallels between a corporate board and a Personal Board, and use your personal network to accelerate your growth today. Assembling the right people around you will provide guidance, challenge, and support for development. But remember, Boards can guide and advise, but they cannot do the work for you. The real progress will come from taking their advice and executing the hard yards needed to achieve your goals.
Emma Maslen
