Board Leadership - The Emerging Challenges for Corporate Boards and Board Chairs | A conversation with Professor Andrew Kakabadse

Boardroom&Beyond Podcast

In this episode, Lyndsey talks with Professor Andrew Kakabadse, Professor of Governance and Strategic Leadership at Henley Business School in the UK, Emeritus Professor of International Management Development at Cranfield University’s School of Management.

Their conversation of this episode covers various hot topics regarding the Emerging Challenges for Corporate Boards and Board Chairs.

Conversation Highlights (with timestamps)

• Different interest groups represented by board members o Board is not a team, and should not work like a team (5:40) o Definition of Independence (6:00) o Various combination of interests in boardroom and the demand of un-comfortable decision-making capability of boards (7:10) o Why really matters? (8:40)
• Mis-alignments in boardroom o We need to respect mis-alignments. (9:20) o Top mis-alignments  Competitive advantage and differentiation (10:10)  The sense of sensitive issues and speaking up (12:20) o Board Chair’s role in facilitate board culture (14:00)
• How does the Chairman facilitate in the boardroom? o Lack of knowledge vs. lack of culture (15:30) o What is governance? (16:00) o The balance of Compliance vs. Stewardship (16:40) o Time to rethink the function of board (18:30)
• Line between board stewardship and management o Sharp lines between Board Chair and CEO (21:00) o Case study – best practice of collaboration between Board Chair and CEO (22:30) o There’s never a clean line – it’s the collaboration between Chair and CEO (24:00)
• How to recognize early risk sign identification? o Good board can sense uncomfortable situation 65 months ahead of time (26:00) o History of the origin of Board and Chair (28:00) o 30-year performance related Hero CEO period (30:00) o Back to the original role of board chair (31:00)
• New challenges for board Chair in the post COVID-19 Era o Technology and efficiency challenges (32:30) o Culture urgency accelerated by COVID-19 (34:30) o Remuneration and nomination issues in Corporate board (36:20) o Board chair can facilitate to address corporate culture and motivation to increase organization efficiency (38:00)
• What characteristics made good Board Chair? o How Chair and CEO develop themselves? (39:30) o One item missing on the risk register (40:30) o Core skills for Board Chair - Forensic capacity of scrutiny (41:08)
• Andrew’s most recent book: Leadership Intelligence: 5Qs For Thriving as A Leader o 5Qs For Thriving as A Leader (42:00) o The most important Q our of 5Qs - IQ in Action (43:10) o Important of RQ (Resilience Intelligence) (44:00) o Disappointment from the research is MQ (Moral Intelligence) (45:30) o IQ, PQ, RQ emerged (46:10)
• Closing remark – The ability to self-assessment of leadership value contribution: o Re-evaluation value contribution periodically (48:00) o The same value assessment applies to the entire board and management team (48:40) o The demand to address value contributions questions due to demand from shareholders and community (50:00)

Guest Contact Information

Professor Andrew Kakabadse

[e-mail]

Website : https://www.henley.ac.uk/people/andrew-kakabadse

Publications :

https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/andrew-kakabadse/1315722/

https://www.kakabadse.com/about-us