Network Blogs

It’s hard to know where to start a blog piece in times of such deep anxiety, stress and rising death tolls. All over the world people have been exposed to a risk of death that had only really be contemplated in passing, either because it was happening elsewhere to other people in a far off land, or on the pages or silver screen of a thriller, where the hero always makes it through safely in the end. The reality of a pandemic is – as we are learning – horrific. It is a crisis of many things, all at once. Lives are being lost. So are many more livelihoods and most business leaders are now wrestling with bigger problems than they have faced before.

As a headhunter, I am party to – and often an influencer of – decisions about who should be entrusted with running a company. I’ve been privileged to work with impressive people running great business, large and small, for 25 years. Please don’t imagine that headhunters like me only work for the big PLCs; quite the contrary, we often work with Owner-Managed and Family businesses too. In fact, it is in these companies that our understanding of the qualities of leadership are at their most valuable. A family business may only settle a question of succession once in a generation, and a founder will hand over the reins of their precious creation probably just the once. Whereas, “executive search consultants” have built careers on ensuring the right outcomes under such circumstances – as for a client to get it wrong can have serious consequences. As a result, I often find myself on the end of questions from clients about the nature of the person required to step into a key position, vital to the future success of a company. Such dilemmas as: experience versus potential, cultural fit versus new blood, and safe hands versus ambition are regularly discussed and agreed prior to the careful identification and pursuit of potential candidates. All well and good for a profitable business in a stable economy… but there is always the question of how an individual will deal with a crisis. Freewheeling in a buoyant market is actually not much of a test of leadership. Catastrophic economic collapse, globally, will of course be now prove the ultimate test for many Chairs, CEOs and MDs.

We’ve all seen the proud boasts of some successful business types. They will tell you they came up the hard way, and it was their special qualities that made it inevitable that they were always going to make it big – some even dispense their pearls of wisdom in paperback. Others consider themselves simply born to lead. Well, after 25 years of advising on Executive and Non-Executive appointments into all manner of businesses (and indeed not-for-profit organisations too) I have formed the working hypothesis that leadership is a team sport. Yes, there will be stars and egos who do enjoy the spotlight, but there are always other great people around them. In fact, I will go further and observe that management failure is inevitable if the supporting team is weak.

So, to the current crisis… with the abject failure of government to communicate, with clarity, a plan we can all believe in, it has fallen to the business community to make some pretty serious decisions that could (and in some cases will) be about life and death. This is where the balanced composition of a board of directors will result in the best possible decision-making. A charismatic leader with strong views, expressed forcibly and often, surrounded by a coterie of sycophants is never going to fare well. Whereas a leader with the humility to recognise that they are not themselves experts in everything, invites and involves able people (ideally more able then them), asks questions, listens to answers, considers the data, hears all views (especially the minority and dissenting) then builds consensus and informs everyone that needs to know what their decision is – with conviction and clarity. Of course, that process has to be led and conducted in a professional and dispassionate way, and ultimately the CEO will have to make a decision, enact it and carry the can for doing so. But, better outcomes are more likely from diverse boards. The statistics bear this up, with ROI consistently better for gender balanced boards than for boards predominately of one gender. Anecdotally, I could write all day about the positive impact of boards comprising multiple perspectives. With businesses, large and small, facing not just financial uncertainty in the short term, but also massive and fundamental changes over the medium-longer term in working practices, market dynamics, supply chain disruption, etc it would be a brave, conceited or foolish CEO that believes they alone, or even with exactly the same team still in place around them, can adapt and restructure their business to a future so radically different from the past.

Non-Executives on the board should not just be grandees of the industry, who in their 60s and 70s (or even 80s and 90s) will be worthy ambassadors for a brand. NEDs can and should be outsiders, with brilliant minds who ask questions of the executives, challenging and holding them to account for everything. NEDs must be the reason why the CEO and CFO / MD and FD prepare thoroughly for every item on the board agenda. A Chair should support and coach the CEO, but be the critical friend when necessary, and be so very familiar with the issues that they are able to discuss and set corporate strategy in collaboration with the CEO, and steer boardroom debate where it needs to go.

I was an invited member of a panel for a Q&A at the launch of the IoD’s NED programme, and in a room of dozens of IoD members aspiring to NED appointments I had a difference of opinion with a very high-profile Chair of several public companies. He (a very nice chap btw) described his perfect board is consensus driven, and right behind the Chair and CEO on everything. I demurred – with the view that boards should actively seek and welcome a contrarian. There is also a more recent and rising trend for Shadow Boards of millennials in consumer-focused businesses, and there are many reports of their fresh young minds identifying threats and opportunities missed by their senior counterparts in the boardroom.

Lockdown is, for many, a period of downtime and contemplation. For many more it is a period of constant and frantic hands-on fire-fighting. For both groups, it may be wise to ponder, now, irrespective of the size of your business, whether the leadership team needs some attention. Chris invited me to write this blog, and I thank him for doing so because I want to help where I can too, but I suspect it will those of you that now take up Chris’s offer of a review of your situation that will come out of this terrible crisis better equipped to lead your businesses into the challenges ahead, surrounded and supported by the right people for the tasks you will face, together.