A friend, who is considering assuming the position of Chairman of the Board in a company, asked for my thoughts on the matter. I googled “roles of a chairman”, found 6-7 sites that seemed to refer to the question seriously, and created a short document of what seemed to me the key points. My modest contribution was to compile a full list, weed out redundancy, deflate bombastic or overly legalistic language, and cluster the items under four categories. Why am I sharing this?
1) as a small service to chairperson-role-aspirants
2) more in my territory – I was surprised that none of the sites that I reviewed referred in any way, even remotely, to INNOVATION. Strange for me that in this day and age, when innovation is officially and very often genuinely so high on company’s priorities, none of the sites thought it relevant to mention that one of the chairperson’s roles is to assist the CEO/MD in this respect.
My recommendation is that the CP should also (as a start):
1) assist MD/CEO to raise her/his head from time to time to consider the long and longer term, even as their daily tasks take precedence in the day-by-day, and rightly so.
2) reflect to CEO/MD when their thinking seems to be constantly limited to the same patterns.
3) demand that the company’s budgets reflect the need to develop future possibilities that are substantially different than current practices.
As promised, here is the list :
1) Ensure that the Board functions properly:
2) In Board meetings:
3) Versus the CEO/MD
4) Represent the company in meetings with government and other external entities.
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