Leading Your Board: Part 1 of a 3 Part Series
Part 1: Creating Your Board "TEAM"
PART 1: Creating Your Board Team
For those short on time, here’s the quick guide to building a great board team:
I’ve learned over 25+ years that great boards are like great teams—they succeed through trust, alignment, and clear leadership. Treat your board as an essential team, not just a governance body. Here’s how to get started:
Boards Are Teams You Lead:
Build trust, communicate transparently (especially the bad news), and foster alignment with offsite retreats and social opportunities.Tap Into Board Member Capital:
Leverage their Social Capital (networks), Intellectual Capital (experience), and Interpersonal Capital (mentorship).Avoid Common Pitfalls:
Fight complacency, avoid rabbit-holing, and align board members with your company’s goals by asking them to wear their “board hat,” not just their “investor hat.”Great Boards Require Great Leadership:
Create trust through consistency, open communication, and genuine curiosity.
Want the full details? Continue reading for strategies, best practices, and expert resources to create an effective Board dynamic.
Over my 25+ years of attending, presenting, and serving as a board director, I’ve learned one universal truth: effective board leadership starts with building a strong BOARD TEAM dynamic.
While this team concept is well understood for any executive or operating team, I’ve found a significant majority of C-Level execs don’t understand their Board of Directors should be a “Key Team” as well for them.
Too many times, Founders and CEOs treat their Board like a child/parent relationship and either try to seek approval or to “manage them” and only tell them what they think they should know. By not treating each other as adults and forming a trusted relationship, companies not only miss out on tremendous knowledge/wisdom opportunities, but worse, put their companies growth and their own careers at risk.
Ultimately, the Board of Directors is the strategic decision-making body. As I’ve written about previously, great decisions are only made by great teams. Therefore, it’s your job as the founder, CEO, or CFO to create an effective “Board Team”.
Over the last 5+ years, I’ve been presenting on webinars, panel discussions, network dinner series (shout out to the OG - Operators Guild) and to my clients, a presentation I created in 2019 called “Leading Your Board”. It has quickly become not only one of my personal favorite “Best Ofs” talks but several people who have attended these talks have taken the time to tell me it's also one of their favorites.
There is a lot to say here so I’ve created a 3 Part Series - 1 post per week over the next 3 weeks - with a focus on leading your Board through building the Board Team, creating Board Alignment, and communicating to your Board effectively.
My ultimate goal with this newsletter is to be a master curator of Best Ofs when it comes to scaling your startup’s operations from Series A to IPO on nearly any critical topic. In this 3 Part Board Series, I promise to sprinkle in all the historical best of links I’ve curated over the last 20+ years from those who have published their own best ofs when it comes to startup Boards.
I hope to make this Board Series your one stop ultimate collection of wisdom including all the links from folks like Dave Kellogg, CJ Gustafson, Mark Suster, with respect to not just managing your Board but rather being the Leader of your Boards.
Let’s Jump In: Part 1 of Leading Your Board
Key Point #1: The Board as a TEAM You Lead
Just like any other team you lead, your board is a group of individuals with unique strengths, weaknesses, and motivations. Team leadership requires you to:
Build trust, credibility, and confidence with every team member/board member
Lead with transparency especially with bad news
Focus on strategic alignment and a solution orientation. Great teams disagree but commit. As Patrick Henry famously stated, “United we stand. Divided we fall.”
Schedule a full day Board offsite/retreat: Do what very few Boards do but what great operating teams do regularly - get the Board together offsite for your next meeting for an all day event followed by a Board Dinner. Both Dave Kellogg and Mark Suster had great best ofs with respect to Board Dinners here and here:
Sprinkle in key socialization breaks or a team activity (e.g. sushi roll making class, wine tasting event, escape room challenge, or a bay area sailing outing)
In 2003, Pascal Levensohn wrote a whitepaper that has been in my Best Of Library ever since. He talks about the role of the Board at different stages of development of a company followed by a long discussion of the desirable team and individual attributes of strong Board Teams:
Pascal Levensohn’s Whitepaper link: Boards of VC Backed Companies
Emotional stability
Strong interpersonal communication skills
Pattern recognition skills
Ability to partner
Investment and operating experience
A strong network of business contacts
Ability to mentor the CEO
Key Point #2: Boards Have Three Sources of Capital
To maximize board effectiveness, recognize the unique “capital” value each Board Member brings to the table. Notice how their “capital” is not the money they gave you.
Social Capital: Each Board Member should have an extensive network to help you unlock opportunities.
Intellectual Capital: Tap into their insights and pattern recognition from past successes.
Interpersonal Capital: This is different than a Board Member’s social network capital. Here, compounding capital requires building personal and/or mentor type or a “sounding board” relationship with each Board Member. Investing in this interpersonal capital not only helps you become part of their social capital (network), but more importantly enables you to call/text them at a moments notice to discuss anything - especially the most critical or potential crisis issues.
Key Point #3: Common Pitfalls in Board Dynamics
Teams succeed or fail based on their ability to confront challenges openly. Avoid these traps:
Complacency: Boards that don’t “show up” create blind spots.
Rabbit Holing: Keep the focus on strategy and avoid getting lost in minor details.
Misalignment: Ensure every member is on the same page about risk tolerance, timelines, and desired outcomes. Actually ask them to put their “company Board hat on” and “Please take your investor hat off”. This concept of Board hat vs investor or VC hat is critical for providing the proper fiduciary duty, objective governance, and balanced risk/reward type decision making.
Pascal Levensohn had these 3 and more in his 2003 Whitepaper and I’ve added to his list below.
The 10 common pitfalls of Boards:
Complacency
Inability to confront difficult issues
Distraction and over-commitment
Misalignment of interests between Board Members and investors
Divisiveness on the Board
Paralysis over liability issues
Board Member role confusion
Leadership vacuum
Loss of trust in the CEO
Bad Board Dynamics:
Complacency: Boards who don’t “show up” and “lean in”
Avoiding confrontation: A Board “too polite” is a powder keg waiting for a match
Off-strategy discussions & rabbit holing
Paralysis/analysis - not challenging key assumptions
Role and leadership confusion: Who is leading?
Mis-alignment of risk? Improper risk curve position by stage
Mis-alignment of time-frames/capabilities/desired company outcomes
Let’s end on a positive note and get back to what makes Great Boards Great.
I also wrote about Trust and Transparency in earlier newsletters:
Cook’s Influence - Leadership Loop
Influence is based on great relationships.
Great relationships are based on trust.
Trust is based on the transparency of your leadership.
Transparency requires being authentic and curious.
Curiosity requires asking a lot of questions, seeking the best ideas, and being a “Learn It All” vs a “Know It All.”
From a post a few months back……
#10 - Trust Requires Transparency; Transparency is the Foundation of Trust
“Trust” = Consistency over Time: I don’t need to agree with you to trust you… but I do need to know where you stand, why you hold your position, and to also know we can disagree respectfully and most importantly you won’t stab me in the back or talk behind my back.
”Trust could be one of your most valuable company assets. As a leader, you need to fight like hell to protect it. If you are successful in protecting trust, you’ll actually grow much faster and have a culture where people love coming to work and working together toward common values and common goals.”
Here’s the Secret of Creating Great Teams - Especially Board Teams
Respect and recognition of all team members
Boards Members want to help you
Board Members want to make an impact
Board Members want to share with you what they’ve learned/pattern matched
Ask each team member / Board Member for their best insights, take notes, and learn from each person
Specifically establish regularly calendared 1:1’s with each Board Member between meetings.
When first establishing your partnership with each Board Member, ask them what makes up the best boards they’ve ever been on… and the worst. Take notes and pattern match from each Board Member’s thoughts and ideas.
Then structure your Board interactions and especially your Board meetings accordingly.
Great teams share all the news - not just good news and especially the bad news
Conclusion:
A great board is built on trust, communication, and alignment. Treat your board as an extension of your team and lead them the way you would your most critical players.
Bookmark this Series. Up Next Week: Part 2 - Leading Your Board - Alignment
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Pumped for part 2!