WCD Boston Chapter Event

Company success relies on both a robust business strategy and a strong, talented team to deliver it. What is the board’s responsibility for leadership development? If business strategy defines what a company plans to do, then leadership strategy governs how a company will do it. Shouldn’t an active board be equally concerned with both?

In May, WCD and Pearl Meyer released a new Thought Leadership Commission report entitled, The Visionary Board at Work: Developing a Culture of Leadership. As part of this report, a global survey conducted by WCD and Pearl Meyer found that roughly 90% of respondents believe that boards have a responsibility to oversee talent and leadership strategy, but only 11% of boards thought they were doing this well. This finding was consistent across U.S. and multinational companies. Click here to see the complete survey results. While the board’s role for CEO succession is clear, leadership strategy goes much deeper. More than the mere identification of a collective group of current and future executives, it is the development and stewardship of a company’s priorities and values – that is, its culture. The report concludes there is a general consensus that best practices in this area are still evolving.

Our experienced panel of directors will talk about how to take leadership development to the next level and provide some examples of how this more proactive role for the board has occurred in their companies. We will then break for dinner with table questions focusing on how each of you addresses these challenges in your own boards.