Or You Can’t Always Get What You Want, But You Get What You Need.

The Rolling Stones weren’t singing about governance, but they might as well have been. At the board table, this truth shows up every day: directors rarely get everything they want. You won’t always receive the perfect briefing package. You won’t always secure consensus for your position. You won’t always get the vote to go your way…

For years, boardrooms have talked about uncertainty. Volatile markets, shifting regulations, geopolitical unrest—all framed within a risk register, as if they could be contained in neat boxes with probability scores and mitigation plans. But what we face now goes deeper than uncertainty. It’s what I call not knowing-ness…

Boardrooms pride themselves on diversity. Gender, ethnicity, geography, industry experience—these all get airtime in competency matrices. But what about neurodiversity? ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and other forms of different thinking are still the quiet elephant in the boardroom. They rarely show up in disclosure, yet they are almost certainly there…

Directors don’t come to the table empty-handed. Everyone has motives and some obvious, some subtle. Most directors I’ve worked with are a blend ticking the box on 3-4 of these at once. Here are a few of the common “whys” I’ve seen. . .

Communication is the board’s currency. Every agenda item, every sidebar conversation, every decision relies on it. But not all communication is created equal. In the boardroom, how you speak—and how you listen—shapes outcomes…

It happens to the best of us. A sharp tone, a cutting remark, or a visible flash of anger slips out in the boardroom. In a setting built on trust, composure, and collaboration, these moments feel bigger than they are. You can’t rewind, but you can recover. In fact, how you handle a mistake often tells the board more about your leadership than whether you made one in the first place…

In today’s boardrooms, expectations are rising. Directors are expected to not only govern with wisdom but also to bring fresh insight into emerging risks, new technologies, and shifting social expectations. That’s where upskilling comes in. Upskilling isn’t about collecting credentials for the sake of it…

If you have served on a board long enough, you have met them: the director who rubs you the wrong way. Maybe it is their style—too abrasive, too quiet, too long-winded. Maybe you simply do not understand where they are coming from. Boards are not friendship clubs. They are governance bodies…

Over the years, I’ve seen boards that hum with healthy debate, adapt quickly to change, and make courageous decisions together. I’ve also seen boards that become paralysed by entrenched positions, unspoken tensions, and directors who simply couldn’t work within the culture. They just don’t ‘fit’…

Board work is work. It may not come with a timesheet or a corner office, but it demands time, judgment, and real responsibility. And yet, it often sits at the crossroads of service and compensation especially in sectors like non-profits, start-ups, and Crown corporations where expectations are high, and resources may be limited…

Most boards are solid at the basics. Review the financials. Keep an eye on KPIs. Approve the strategy. Ask a few clarifying questions that don’t rock the boat. But when it comes to real leadership - the kind that stretches thinking, reframes issues, and creates room for something new - it’s easy for boards to coast…

Private conversations between directors are a normal, and often necessary, part of board work. They build trust, strengthen relationships, test thinking, and help directors prepare for high-stakes discussions. But there’s a fine line between allyship, which strengthens governance, and lobbying, which undermines it …

One of the most underrated parts of board work happens not in the boardroom, but around the dinner table the night before. Over the years, I’ve come to value these dinners as more than just a calendar placeholder. They are where tone is set, relationships are tended, and …

Early in my career, I saw it all the time. The quiet assumptions. The subtle exclusions. The invisible lines between who belonged and who was quietly kept at the edge. Decades later, unconscious bias and othering are still here…

Strategy never fails on paper. It fails in execution, in assumption, or in resistance that no one wanted to name out loud. The board’s role isn’t to write the strategy but to interrogate it…

A CEO once told me, “We need a better culture.” I bit and asked, “Better how?” They paused, then said, “I want people to take more initiative. Speak up. Stop waiting for permission.” That moment stuck with me because beneath the vague language was a very specific problem…

We’ve all heard the phrase: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. But in the context of a board of directors, this isn’t just a metaphor. It’s a test. If your board isn’t functioning as more than a collection of resumes, expertise, and credentials, you’re not getting full value…

Board work isn’t for the faint of heart. It takes resilience, clarity, discernment and more often than we admit, the ability to sit in discomfort. To be effective, I think that directors must lead with both Grit&Grace…

Every boardroom has its moments. When the meeting goes off the rails, the dynamic shifts, or the conversation spirals into chaos. In other words, when things go cattywampus…

We don’t talk nearly enough about reciprocity in board governance—but we should.

Reciprocity isn’t about scratching backs or quiet quid-pro-quos. It’s not about trading votes, currying favour, or keeping mental scorecards. That’s politics—not governance…