Being a Board Member in Times of Uncertainty: Let Leaders Lean on the Board
During these uncertain times, leaders across the world now find themselves navigating the unenviable task of leading without a map, making difficult decisions with impossible tradeoffs, and importantly, keeping organizations and people safe and motivated when they themselves are afraid.
As you reimagine your board role during these challenging times, here are some tips to succeed in spite of the current crisis.
1. Create a safe space to be vulnerable
Executives are people too. While senior management may have to put up a brave face as teams look for clarity, maintaining this façade can be exhausting. CEOs are not armed with perfect answers to complex problems, yet rarely show vulnerability or confide in their team. Here, a supportive board can play a critical role as leaders search for reassurance that they too can get through this.
Reach out to your CEO and remind them that it is okay to be vulnerable. Encourage them to adopt an open, honest, compassionate attitude. In these conversations, consider adopting an approach that communicates “I don’t have all the answers; but I care about your well-being first and foremost. I am here for you and we can figure this out together.” By reaching out more frequently, board directors can enhance their role as partners and confidantes for senior leadership. In an emotionally safe environment, CEOs can be more honest about what they do and do not know as well as the source of their anxiety. In turn, board directors can troubleshoot challenges faced by CEOs and their organisations.
2. Invest in health and safety
To ensure business continuity, leaders should confirm that staff adhere to workplace guidelines for health and safety and are addressing their emotional and physical well-being. These considerations should not be taken for granted, particularly in resource-poor environments where individuals and their families may be experiencing changes in household income as a result of the pandemic. Support leaders by maintaining regular communication to ensure that employee well-being remains a top priority. Consider establishing COVID-19 committee including functions such as the CEO, Human Resources, Finance, Operations and Facilities to regularly check the health and safety of employees. This committee should develop standards for the workplace such as safe work-from-home policies and, if working in the office, establish clear guidelines for compliance like daily screening and cleaning standards as well as social distancing requirements. A basic COVID-19 compliance and risk dashboard and regularly updated declaration forms should also be shared amongst all staff. Encourage frequent board engagement with the members of this committee to guide internal policy development. Board directors can support by sharing resources and information from their broad networks.
3. Lend an operational hand
Board directors may find that they need to become more operational and roll their sleeves up more than is typically required. This hands-on approach may be required if leaders and managers encounter challenges such as reduction in staff time, furloughing, shrinking of operations — that they must implement quickly. Now is the time to wade into the detail — get onto the COVID-19 committee, review the proposals, the new budget, and the strategy in great detail. Think through the loopholes and the possible pitfalls. But throughout all of this, don’t forget to be kind and keep your eye on the big picture. Always focus on solutions by collective brainstorming and creative thinking. Now is not the time to exact unrealistic standards or hammer the organization for not meeting targets or deadlines.
4. Help uncover a mission-aligned “COVID-19 competency”
In some ways, the uncertainty is also a time to strip down to essentials — to simplify and focus. What is essential in the organization? That is your organization’s superpower. Help the organization develop and “tell the story” of its “COVID-19 competency.” Boards should also ensure that organizations do not lose focus on mission and cannibalize its core interventions. Coupling COVID-19 interventions with the core mission of an organization could allow organizations take advantage of the significant funds now made available towards COVID-19 related activity while also ensuring sustainability.
In the early days following school shut-downs in Kenya, for example, Metis (a fellowship for education innovation) designed and distributed hundreds of educational supplemental packs to families that did not have access to online learning materials. Metis also bundled these with free food parcels distributed in Nairobi’s informal settlements, reaching scale effectively, cheaply, and quickly. This illustrates Metis’ ability to stick to its core activities while taking advantage of obvious COVID-19 linked opportunities.
5. Be a compass in the storm
Many organizations now balance the urgency of present needs and the requirements of planning for an uncertain future. This juggling act can be dangerous and anxiety-provoking and, in some cases, even paralyzing. While survival is the most critical item on the minds of most businesses, scenario planning is essential. Your job as a board director is to help steer the ship. Be a compass, not a barometer — help the senior leadership steer the organization in the right direction but don’t add to the pressure.
Acknowledge that the world is changing rapidly and that the future is going to be uncertain. Senior management is likely already experiencing emotional stress and trauma while managing their employees’ anxieties, client concerns and donor requirements. An organization’s board often gives senior management a much-needed “safety-valve,” to share their anxieties and concerns. It is important that leaders are given the space to not just perform their roles, but also allowed to share openly some of the concerns they may have for the future — however dire.
Allow these concerns to emerge and create a safe space for really honest and open discussions about the future, including all possible scenarios. As Rebecca Solnit, author of Hope in the Dark says, in the spaciousness of uncertainty there is room to act.” In the heart of uncertainty, boards can help orient leaders towards the future, while keeping an open mind to shifting winds and changing seas.
Let leaders lean on the board during these uncertain times — create a safe space for vulnerability, encourage a focus on wellness, lend operational support, uncover and amplify the organization’s COVID-19 competency, and be a compass in the storm.
Micheline Ntiru works with Stanford Seed as a business advisor for growth -stage businesses across Africa. She sits on the boards of Oxford Policy Management (OPM) in the UK; eHealth Africa in Nigeria as well as on the advisory board of VC firm Samata Capital. Her work spans Africa, Europe, Latin America and the U.S.
Sharmi Surianarain is the Chief Impact Officer of Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator. Sharmi sits on the Boards of Emerging Public Leaders, Ongoza, Metis and is on the Advisory Council for the NextGen Ecosystem Builders Africa 2020
