10 must-have qualities every board member should cultivate

If you answered yes to any of the above, you might not be board material, according to an informal survey of more than 200 executives, by Him for Her, an organization that aims to boost gender diversity on boards.

Him for Her pursues its mission by assisting companies with candidate searches and hosting small dinners where people in positions of influence are introduced to women seeking board roles, says founder Jocelyn Mangan. The goal is to destroy the pipeline myth, one fancy meal at a time.

Along the way, Mangan has also asked her VIP guests—CEOs, CFOs, and board members—about the most effective corporate directors they’ve encountered. Noticing that certain themes repeatedly surfaced in their responses, she created a top 10 list of valuable director qualities to share with clients interviewing for board seats. The list has become a useful scorecard for measuring leadership generally or even parenting capabilities, Mangan says. Boards can also use it to evaluate their performance as a group.

 Here’s what extraordinary board members do well, according to Him For Her:

1. Ask thoughtful questions. The best directors don’t ask questions to make a point; they ask questions out of genuine curiosity. “They invite the board to look at the situation in a new way or question how things have been done,” says Mangan.

2. See around corners. Top board members spot trends or likely pitfalls before others, often including a company’s executive team.

3. Inspire the team to think bigger. While all directors must understand a company’s business today, MVP directors “keep their eyes on a three- to five-year strategy,” says Mangan.

4. Use the product. It’s strangely common for board members to be woefully out of touch with a company’s client base or reputation. To be a strong director, step into the customer’s shoes, or audit support calls, and follow the firm on social media to see how it’s perceived, says Mangan. “I’m on the board at Papa John’s, and we have our board meetings in the test kitchen on a regular basis.”

5. Oversee without taking over. Turning off the impulse to give commands can be challenging for some high achievers, particularly during hard times “when problem-solving comes naturally,” says Mangan. Do it anyway.

6. Network and recruit. Effective board members are “ambassadors for the brands” they represent and invite other bright minds into the company’s orbit.

7. Spend time with the company. People tend to think that board members are only active for four meetings per year. That’s increasingly less true for public company boards and not the case for private ones, where directors might interact with the company daily or weekly. “We heard lots of great personal stories, like about a board member who got on an overnight flight to be there for an important business development meeting where they stayed silent,” says Mangan.

8. Invest in the CEO. In this case, investing goes beyond coaching or strategizing and may look like being a friend. “When a company is in crisis, sometimes the board member will just call the CEO to check in and ask, ‘How are you doing?’” Mangan says. (Remember that board members might be part of a company for five to 10 years, she adds, and a lot can happen in a person’s life during that period.)

9. Challenge thinking. A choice quote from a Him for Her interview: “If everyone’s agreeing, you have the wrong board.” 

10. Has a high signal-to-noise ratio. Top directors are selective about their contributions to discussions. “They also recognize the power of their voice as a board member and the unintended impact they can have on executive teams who may misinterpret their comments,” Mangan says. With less aware leaders, it can be hard to tell when they’re musing aloud or making a request.

Although there’s no shortage of board prep resources, Mangan concedes, her list differs from most because of its emphasis on emotional intelligence. By the time you’re being considered for a board seat, you have the know-how for the job, but so-called soft skills are what “separates the great from the good,” she says.

When CEOs told her why they admired particular board members, she adds, none said, “Well, they really understand the audit process.”

Lila MacLellan
lila.maclellan@fortune.com
@lilamaclellan

Noted

“If you could make $5 million a year for the next five years as a CFO instead of $15 million for the next five years [as CEO]—yes, there’s an absolute difference. But it isn’t so bad, making $5 million for five years, right? And people are starting to think more like that than they were before.”

—Dick Patton, a succession expert at the Egon Zehnder leadership advisory firm, discusses the next generation of CEO candidates in this do-not-miss Fortune feature. 

On the Agenda

👓  What are boards looking for in tomorrow’s CEOs? In the essay cited above, Fortune’s Geoff Colvin looks at the paradox facing would-be leaders in the A.I. era. Fortune also identified 11 fast-rising executives who look set to become breakout CEO stars.

🎧  “I violently reject the notion of CEOs as superheroes,” Emma Walmsley, chief executive of GSK, tells Fortune in a new Leadership Next podcast. Walmsley touches on her reaction to Elliott Management’s call for her to reapply for her job and how she stumbled into her corporate career.

📖 The New Yorker’s special package of stories about innovative experiments tackling climate change epitomizes bookmark-worthy journalism. The pieces—about physical barriers that could protect glaciers, a “security camera” for methane leaks, building the world’s largest solar farm, etc.—were published a month ago but remain timely. 

In Brief

- Hedge funds are already delegating mundane tasks to generative A.I. But the bots are expected to move on to meatier work in time, Bloomberg reports.

- Japanese companies that nominate all-male boards will no longer have the support of Norway’s influential sovereign wealth fund. U.S. and European boards have long faced a higher bar: To win approval from the investing giant, they must have two female directors.

- Delta has branded itself “the world’s first carbon-neutral airline.” Now it faces a class-action lawsuit from consumers who say that claim is dangerous and misleading.

- Puck revealed a few “board-level machinations” at Lazard Bank, where CEO Ken Jacobs is stepping down to become executive chair. Jacobs will continue to be an “M&A rainmaker,” who will report to his fellow directors, not his successor.

Editor’s Pick 

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority may soon overturn a law that allows colleges to use race as a factor in admissions. Such a sea change could throw up a roadblock for DEI projects in corporate America, experts told Fortune reporters Trey Williams and Paige McGlauflin. In fact, the same kind of right-wing activism that sparked the recent Supreme Court affirmative action cases has already impacted equality and equity training. 

Here’s a snippet:

“The most direct impact of the Supreme Court prohibiting race-based admissions decisions is that universities will very likely become less diverse over time—as has happened in public university systems in states where affirmative action is already banned. If so, companies will be left with a more homogenous talent pool to recruit from.

And there are likely to be knock-on effects for companies, says Camille Bryant, an attorney and member of the labor and employment practice group at McGlinchey Stafford. It may be harder to live up to the ESG commitments that companies have made to investors, for example. And less diverse workforces may turn off customers, who increasingly expect brands to be inclusive. More homogenous workplaces are also less appealing to millennial and Gen Z workers, who have high expectations of workforce diversity.”

Read the rest of the piece, which includes advice for company leaders ahead of the expected shift, here.