CEO Development Strategies for Board Engagement

THE BOARD STRATEGY THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING: WHAT GREAT CEOS DO DIFFERENTLY Do you live in perpetual dread of board meetings? You spend days preparing detailed progress reports, praying you’ve hit your numbers, hoping no one is going to ask the hard questions you don't have answers to. The error is in thinking your board is there to evaluate you when, in fact, they’re not. They’re there to AMPLIFY YOU. I think you’ll find that this reframe could change everything about how you experience your board relationships. YOUR THINKING BEFORE: The Report Card Approach 👎 Focus on proving you have everything under control 👎 Present problems only after you'd solved them 👎 Ask for money and approval 👎 Defensive when challenged 👎 Information flows one way: down to them AFTER THIS REFRAME: The Strategic Partnership Approach 👍 Focus on getting help with what you don't have under control 👍 Bring problems while you are still solving them 👍 Ask for insights and connections 👍 Curious when challenged 👍 Information flows both ways Here are some simple tactical changes that will help you transition from the first kind of relationship to the new and improved one: Send the board deck 48 hours early. Don't make them absorb information during the meeting. Use meeting time for discussion, not presentation. Lead with your biggest challenges first. Save the good news for the end. Board members want to earn their equity by helping you solve hard problems. Ask specific questions, not generic ones. Instead of "Any thoughts on our go-to-market strategy?" try "Sarah, given your experience scaling B2B companies, what would you prioritize: investing in outbound sales or product-led growth?" Hold post-meeting calls with individual board members. Some of the best advice comes in one-on-one conversations, not group settings. Share customer feedback, both positive and negative. Board members make better decisions when they understand your customers' real experience. Be vulnerable about what you don't know. The phrase "I don't know, but here's how I'm planning to figure it out" builds more confidence than pretending to have all the answers. Don’t forget: Your board members didn't invest in your company to sit in quarterly meetings and nod approvingly. They invested because they want to be part of building something significant. Stop treating them like parents who need to sign your report card and more like strategic partners. What's one challenge you're facing where your board's collective experience could actually help you move faster? *** I’m Jennifer Kamara, founder of Kamara Life Design. Enjoy this? Repost to share with your network, and follow me for actionable strategies to design businesses and lives with meaning. Want to go from good to world-class? Join our community of subscribers today: https://lnkd.in/d6TT6fX5 

“Noses in, fingers out” is a bad board proverb. Over the years, I have seen this phrase repeated as a guiding principle for boards. The philosophy: Boards are meant to govern, not manage. Their role is to guide strategy, ensure accountability, and support leadership rather than run the business themselves. But in practice, “noses in, fingers out” can prevent boards from offering the kind of constructive support CEOs actually need - especially when things are not going as planned. Too often, board engagement defaults to performance assessment. But if the goal is long-term value creation, boards must also view themselves as developmental partners to the CEO. This requires a different mindset - one rooted in vulnerability, openness, and shared ownership of the unknowns. In practice, this means moving from broad oversight to deep partnership in the areas that matter most. It means the board chair sitting down with the CEO and asking, “Are we engaging in a way that truly helps you perform at your best?” If the CEO responds, “I have this,” and performance does not improve, then a decision point is near. But if the CEO says, “I have some of this, but I need help in other areas,” that is not a red flag - it is an invitation to co-create, coach, and iterate. Help can take many forms: weighing in earlier on strategic direction, rather than reacting to a finished product, or supporting a CEO to troubleshoot execution approach when the strategy is sound but results are lagging. In the best boardrooms, engagement with the CEO is not defined by hierarchy, judgment, or distance. It is defined by trust, candor, and a shared commitment to building something better. While no CEO wants board members to act like management, they want engaged board members who offer ideas, and wisdom and are true sounding boards along the journey.

There are two mistakes that first time CEOs commonly make. These themes come up in nearly every conversation I have with new CEOs and their boards. 1/ CEOs don’t invest enough time early in their tenure developing 1x1 relationships with the board…and vice versa. 2/ CEOs want to prove to the board that they picked the right leader; they bring fully baked strategic decisions to the board and present them like a fait accompli; they don’t allow the board enough input to major decisions. I often hear this from new/first time public company and PE portfolio CEOs: “I am spending much more time with the board than I expected”. If the CEOs are telling me this early in their tenure that’s a good thing. There’s nothing more important than the relationship between CEO and board. If they are telling me this later in their tenure, it may be rough sailing ahead. The antidote: Invest in developing trusted 1x1 relationships (CEO with board and vice versa). It’s not unheard of to spend 20-30% of your time in the first year as CEO doing so. Leverage the experience, capabilities and wisdom of the board to your favor. Let them “marinate” with you on the toughest issues. It’s not a sign of weakness - you’ll end up with a better solution, better alignment, and the board will have your back when the inevitable rough seas roll in.

My board members are some of the most valuable thinkers I’ve met. Here’s what I do to ensure the time we spent together is as thoughtful and strategic as possible: 1. Focus on collaboration & transparency I come prepared with questions and discussion points to get different perspectives and everyone involved. And use financial reports and performance metrics to tackle a strategic issue and company’s long-term direction. I’m honest about how I’m doing and how the market may or may not affect my goals. 2. Build a preparation plan I invest in heavy prepwork up to a month before every board meeting. I ask my department heads to put together a 3-6 page doc outlining where they’ve been & where they’re heading to get a better picture. We compile a single doc that we share ahead of the live meeting. This way, they have full context and background. Then in the live meeting, we can take advantage of the board’s expertise and focus on how to move the company forward. 3. Tap into your board’s superpowers What can each board member offer your department heads to help them move the needle? I like to learn the board inside-and-out and build the agenda around those key conversations. I intentionally facilitate conversations between my board members and my executive staff to ensure we’re fully taking advantage of these superpowers. I’ve been running Clari this way for 10 years, and it’s been essential to our growth.