Joining a board as a new director can feel like stepping into a conversation already mid-sentence. The history is rich, the relationships are often well established, and the rhythms are familiar and well worn. In that context, credibility doesn’t come from talking more; it comes from asking better questions…

We didn’t ease into 2026. We lurched.

The year opened against a backdrop of geopolitical aggression, economic brinkmanship, market speculation, and a steady hum of conspiracy theories that blur the line between fact, fear, and fiction…

We don’t talk about intuition enough in governance circles. Not the mystical kind, but the deep, practiced knowing that comes from years of pattern recognition, lived experience, and the ability to read the room beneath the words…

“How much does IQ matter when you’re sitting at the board table? What about EQ?” This might seem like a deceptively simple question , but the leaders in the room went quiet…

At a recent board workshop, we spent time unpacking how to approach a board interview, what to ask, what to listen for, and how to evaluate the culture you may be stepping into. The conversation surfaced an important theme: integrity. . .

Boardrooms are full of impressive people yet even with all that talent, conversations can feel thin, decisions heavy, and progress slower than it should be. Which brings us to the old folktale of Stone Soup…

Onboarding isn’t paperwork. It’s culture-setting. In the first weeks of a new director’s term, a board signals what it values, what it neglects, and how it expects people to show up. A good onboarding process equips directors…

For decades, the relationship between boards and executives ran on a familiar rhythm. Management led, boards oversaw. There were clear lanes, predictable cycles, and a shared sense of expectations on what “good governance” looked like…

Lately, “unlearning” has become a buzzword, tossed around in leadership seminars, innovation workshops, and strategy retreats. But behind the jargon lies one of the most difficult and essential skills for modern governance.

Years ago, a coach and friend shared a simple truth that has stayed with me: every leader needs a circle. A circle is a small group of people who see you clearly, stretch you deeply, and stand beside you quietly when the weight of leadership feels heavy…

Boards often celebrate alignment. It’s a mark of maturity, shared purpose, unified direction, and collective wisdom. But there’s a quiet danger in too much harmony. When everyone agrees too quickly, it’s worth asking: what are we not hearing? …

In boardrooms, we talk a lot about impact. Less often do we talk about effect. Yet understanding the difference between the two can mean the difference between being a director who shapes outcomes and one who simply reacts to them…

Technology has rewired the world faster than governance could evolve. Yet in boardrooms across Canada, one of the most subtle and consequential fault lines isn’t about balance sheets or bylaws. It’s about how directors think…

Sometimes, deep knowledge can cloud perspective. We think expertise keeps us safe — that the person who “knows” will steer us through complexity. But in the boardroom, expertise can quietly distort what’s meant to be a collective act of governance…

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…