Board Governance Blog

How Do You Hold Board Members Accountable for Their Behavior?

We work with many different boards of directors in many different types of organizations. Our mission is always to improve board governance and effectiveness. One question keeps coming up: How do you hold dysfunctional board members accountable? When board members bad mouth staff, or disrupt meetings, or stray outside their lane into operational matters, what …

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Five Best Practices of Non-Profit Boards (and 5 Lessons Learned)

Diversity, inclusion, equity, transparency, cybersecurity, digital transformation—as the list of Board issues continues to rise, the importance of good governance fundamentals cannot be overlooked. In my experience working with non-profit boards for more than 25 years, there are five best practices of high-performing boards that should be at the core of every Board’s understanding. Download …

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For Board chairs of public agencies – an opportunity for expert coaching online

During this time, as everyone is sheltering in place and focusing on friends and family, we at LRI are doing the same. FaceTime and Zoom are helping us to keep in touch. And for those of us who have leadership responsibilities, as elected or appointed government officials, we must also stay focused on our mission …

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5 Principles to Improve Corporate Governance

The New York Times had interesting article recently about an essay by a former corporate lawyer named Jamie Gamble. Gamble has been exposed to the inner sanctums of some of America’s most prominent corporations.

Sharpening the Focus of a Board

Several new clients have contacted us in the past few weeks looking for help with their Boards. Here are the problems that they talked about.

Effective Board Governance: 10 New Year’s Resolutions

In the spirit of the new year, here are 10 resolutions I think could apply to the boards of directors of non-profits and public agencies. Pick at least one for yourself and let’s check in 12 months from now!

Strategic Policy Governance – a System That Works for Publicly-Elected Boards

In my travels around the U.S., I work with many different organizations, including public power companies. I work with their publicly-elected Boards to help them figure out how to effectively govern their organizations.

Governance and Strategy: A Key Nexus for High-Performing Companies

Much of the value we provide clients stems from the fact that we have deep expertise in two areas, strategic planning and governance. That expertise provides an important nexus upon which to build stronger, better performing organizations. Governance is all about who makes what decisions. It looks at the role of the board of directors, …

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Sharpening the Focus for Boards of Directors

Boards of directors clearly have ultimate decision-making authority for everything under their guidance. But in actual practice, many boards don’t exercise that authority. Staff often drafts a recommendation and brings it to the board to ratify. This may be efficient, but it casts the board in the role of “rubber stamping.” Over time, this erodes …

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Lessons for a Board President

In passing the leadership torch at a non-profit organization, I was asked to name the things that effective Board presidents do. Here’s my list: Facilitate and preside over the Board meetings, starting on time, ending on time, keeping the conversation on topic, calling on people who are quiet, trying to engage everyone. Model the behaviorsb …

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