Are You a Future-Ready Board Chair?

Today’s challenges and opportunities require board chairs to embody a broader range of leadership practices than those exhibited by their predecessors. A Briefings for the Boardroom piece from Korn Ferry emphasizes this point by identifying three essential success factors for chairs—Coaching, Curiosity, and Continuous Learning—that are prevalent today. Referred to as the three Cs, the K-F writers draw on research involving hundreds of chairs.

“… transformation doesn’t happen in the boardroom alone. It happens in the relationship between the chair and the CEO. In today’s high-stakes environment, the chair must also act as a coach: a trusted sounding board, a challenger of assumptions, and a strategic partner who helps the CEO step into the next phase of leadership [italics ours].”

Although each leader in the K-F study came from the for-profit, corporate sector, we see the same Cs becoming essential to the success of chairs in nonprofit education. Merely being able to run an effective board meeting is no longer sufficient, although running meetings surely remains an important skill. Korn Ferry calls this a repositioning of the board from a primary role of oversight to one of steering transformation, a necessary move to cope with volatility and uncertainty.

Are boards ready for the role? Are chairs up for the partnership? And are heads of school and presidents?