After years of sitting on both sides of the Board table, I believe that one of the greatest gifts a new non-executive director (NED) can bring to a new Board is humility. Boards can appear grand from the outside, but when you distil them down, they are teams like any other team in the business — groups of people trying to achieve something together. The worst thing a new NED can do is arrive with a sense of swagger, keen to impart their accumulated wisdom from prior roles. It almost always ends badly.

A NED’s first, and most important, job is to become, as quickly as possible, a valued member of the team. And the first step in becoming a member of a team is to listen. I mean really listen. When I join a new Board, I assume I know nothing — about the business, about the culture, about the dynamics of the people around the table. That mindset clears away bias and opens up space to learn. You listen in order to understand. You listen to figure out how you can influence in the most productive way. You listen to get to know the people. And listening means listening to as many external sources of data and insight as possible, including customers, suppliers, sector experts, competitors, and industry influencers.  Last but absolutely not least, it’s important to find time to speak to people at all levels in the business – those who have the customer interaction, whether in a contact centre, or in sales, or field support, tend to be the people who really know what’s going on!

Too many new NEDs feel they have to speak at the Board to prove they deserve their seat at the table. This is nonsense. Chairs and CEOs are appreciative of NEDs who say very little until, or unless, they have genuine value to add. The best NEDs serve the team as impassioned team members, ask great questions, show appreciation and only speak when there is something worthwhile and value-adding to say.

Becoming part of the team

When I think about helping new NEDs settle in, I often go back to my time at Sage, where I spent 15 years as a main Board Director. We had a very stable executive core, but a regular flow of non-execs joining us. Our approach as executives on the Board was always to reach out to new non-executive colleagues early. We never wanted new NEDs to have to figure things out on their own — we chose to share our perspectives, provide context and explain the cultural fabric of the business so that they could find their place more quickly.

We were very lucky at Sage. We recruited NEDs who were wonderfully expert in their respective fields even though not necessarily that knowledgeable about accounting software — yet they were keen as mustard to learn. I think this is important. The best NEDs, in my view, are those who come from outside the industry, and with a strong sense of curiosity. If you find you need industry expertise on your Board, you may have a bigger problem with your executive team than you think! What Boards need is challenge, fresh thinking and different perspectives, not “me too” thinking from people who have served the same sector all their working lives.

At Sage, we proactively encouraged new NEDs to spend time with our people, talk to customers, meet suppliers and immerse themselves in our world. We had an induction programme — not excessively formal but structured enough to give them a grounding in their first 90 days. It made a huge difference.

The hardest adjustment: stepping away from the executive mindset

When I stepped away from being CEO to become non-executive Chair, the biggest adjustment was putting into practice the simple rule that Charles Gregson, one of the best Chairs I know, maintained was the key to success for the Chair/CEO relationship.  His simple rule was this: “The Chair runs the Board; the CEO runs the company. And if either the Chair or the CEO overly interferes with the other, the Board’s in trouble.”

That separation of powers is vital. It gives the CEO clear boundaries within which to operate. The CEO’s job is lonely — he or she sits at the pinch point of almost everything, managing stakeholders in all directions – and so clarity of boundaries is hugely helpful. In my executive career, I have, in common I suspect with many executive directors reading this piece, worked with Chairs who have been unable to stop themselves from interfering in the role of the executive, second-guessing every decision, and creating chaos along the way. These experiences have been invaluable for me now that I am embarking on my non-executive career as a Chair, as they have taught me how not to lead, and what to avoid.  Clarity of boundaries between executive and non-executive is fundamental to the creation of a trusting and strong Board dynamic.

The relationship between Chair and CEO is key to the successful running of any Board and has to be built on mutual trust and good personal chemistry. You don’t have to be cut from the same cloth, but you do need to understand each other.

One thing I do as Chair is offer what I call “safe space”. I might say to the CEO, “My safe-space hat is on! Let it all out – share every worry and every issue and let’s brainstorm possible solutions…” At the end of these “safe space” sessions, we summarise what’s appropriate to take to the Board. CEOs value this enormously. It gives them room to think aloud without fear of consequence.

What great NED behaviour looks like in a crisis

The real test of a NED comes during periods of crisis. One of the businesses I chair faced an extraordinary challenge when its biggest customer chose to exit the market. The business lost a material amount of its revenue within three months.

In moments like that, NED behaviour becomes critically important. One non-exec on this Board, representing the principal private equity shareholder, was magnificent. She confronted the reality of the situation, stayed measured, asked great questions and provided unwavering support and reassurance to the Board and to the management team. Her calm was a source of strength for all of us.  I’m absolutely convinced her approach to the crisis was one of the reasons we came through that situation and emerged as a stronger business.

Balancing performance with purpose

The principal duty of any Board is to manage the business for the benefit of all stakeholders, and particularly shareholders.  Boards need to be seen to be doing the right thing on sustainability, diversity and inclusion and broader stakeholder responsibilities to customers, suppliers and the communities the business serves. To me, these are not box-ticking exercises. They are foundational to good business practice. Indeed, businesses with a strong sense of purpose tend, in my experience, to perform more successfully than those that are, for example, singularly focused on a financial outcome to the exclusion of everything else.

Leadership

This takes me to the most important driver of success in any business, or on any Board, and that is leadership.

When things go wrong in a business many people will conclude that change is required, to process, policy, organisation design, or strategic direction. But nine times out of ten this won’t be the answer; the answer will be that something has gone wrong with leadership. And resolving the leadership issues, often by removing someone in the chain of command, or redistributing responsibilities or changing team constructs, can unlock different and more engaging leadership behaviours, with an instant and liberating impact on the business.

And of course, the same is true of Boards. When a Board appears to be becoming dysfunctional, the answer is not to change policy, or strategy, or future direction.  The change required is almost always a shift in leadership behaviours, or if that doesn’t work, a change in the composition of the Board. People make businesses work, and if the people agenda is misaligned, and leadership behaviours are not in synch then trouble will surely follow. Ensuring leadership behaviours are in the right place is one of the principal duties of any Board.

It would be remiss of me at this point not to mention a simply wonderful leadership programme I attended some 25 years ago, called The Living Leader, that changed my whole outlook on leadership and leadership behaviours. The programme helped me understand the difference between two modes of leadership, “manager mode” and “leader mode”.

Manager mode is where you drive people to perform by controlling the agenda —this way of leading has its place, particularly in crises, but if it’s used all the time it suffocates innovation and creativity and can be highly demotivating for people.  Again, this is just as true at Board level as it is in the organisation as a whole.

Leader mode is quite different. It is about inspiring others to do things for themselves — this is entirely liberating, giving people the space and time to think differently and creatively, and take true responsibility for outcomes. If you want deeply engaged people who believe in what they’re doing and feel part of something exciting, you cannot rely on manager mode alone. You have to lead.  Which means creating an environment where others can flourish.

As Chair, I try to spend most of my time in leader mode: listening, appreciating, asking incisive questions, supporting and building on the ideas of others and ensuring debates are open and honest, and summarised, so everyone is clear on accountabilities and deliverables. If the Board is facing a crisis, and these days this happens to Boards more often than we would like, then manager mode comes more into its own, and it is up to the Chair to be more directive in style and approach.

In closing

If I could offer some simple advice to new NEDs, it would be this: listen attentively, ask great questions, show appreciation generously and speak only when you can add value. Become part of the team first. Influence comes later.

Boards are at their best when the people who serve on them are humble, curious and infused with a sense of purpose. If you can bring those qualities to the table, you will not only make a meaningful contribution as a NED — you will also become a better colleague and a better leader.