Synopses & Reviews
Is your firms board creating valueor destroying it?Change is coming. Leadership at the top is being redefined as boards take a more active role in decisions that once belonged solely to the CEO. But for all the advantages of increased board engagement, it can create debilitating questions of authority and dangerous meddling in day-to-day operations. Directors need a new road mapfor when to lead, when to partner, and when to stay out of the way.
Boardroom veterans Ram Charan, Dennis Carey, and Michael Useem advocate this new governance modela sharp departure from what has been demanded by governance activists, raters, and regulatorsand reveal the emerging practices that are defining shared leadership of directors and executives. Based on personal interviews and the authors broad and deep experience working with executives and directors from dozens of the worlds largest firms, including Apple, Boeing, Ford, Infosys, and Lenovo, Boards That Lead tells the inside story behind the successes and pitfalls of this new leadership model and explains how to:
Define the central idea of the company
Ensure that the right CEO is in place and potential successors are identified
Recruit directors who add value
Root out board dysfunction
Select a board leader who deftly bridges the divide between management and the board
Set a high bar on ethics and risk
With a total of eighteen checklists that will transform board directors from monitors to leaders, Charan, Carey, and Useem provide a smart and practical guide for businesspeople everywherewhether they occupy the boardroom or the C-suite.
Review
Directors and Boards magazines Governance Book of the Year.”
a must for anyone who sits on a major corporate boardor who wants to understand them
. Their very helpful book provides lessons from their experiences, as well as practical advice to others going through the transformation.” Wall Street Journal
The writers know their stuff
the authors know their audience.” Financial Times
a compelling account of a new leadership model for the modern corporation
” Directors and Boards magazine
The authors - Ram Charan, Dennis Carey, and Michael Useemeach an expert and practitioner in the field, throw a lot of insights on how companies can benefit from having boards that work rather than just exist.” Financial Express (India)
a wise and comprehensive book.” The Globe and Mail
The summarised action points at the end of each chapter allows busy readers to takeaway key thoughts to chew on at their own time of reflection.” BusinessLeadershipManagement (BLM), The Executives Magazine
Leadership at the top is being redefined as boards take a more active role in decisions that once belonged solely to the CEO. Ram Charan, Dennis Carey and Michael Useem advocate a new governance model and reveal the emerging practices that are defining shared leadership of directors and executives. With a total of eighteen checklists that will transform board directors from monitors to leaders, Charan, Carey and Useem provide a smart and practical guide for business people everywhere - whether they occupy the boardroom or the C-suite.” Strategic Management Bureau (UK)
ADVANCE PRAISE for Boards That Lead:
Alan Mulally, CEO and President, Ford Motor Company
Boards That Lead provides the essential road map for corporate leadership. With gripping accounts and compelling illustrations, Charan, Carey, and Useem show how directors can lead in strategic partnership with company executives. This is a game changer, required reading for all who seek to bring out the best in their boards.”
Fred Hassan, Managing Director (Healthcare), Warburg Pincus; Chairman and director, Bausch + Lomb; former Chairman and CEO, Schering-Plough; former lead director, Avon Products; director, Time Warner
This book shows how, through leading, partnering, and delegating, boards are now starting to shape the architecture of the company in unprecedented ways. This book is rich with storiesthere is nothing like learning from three world-leading practitioners on advancing board capabilities to get the company to raise its game.”
Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., President and CEO, TIAA-CREF
Boards That Lead offers an illuminating road map for how a board of directors can effectively engage and motivate its corporate management team to successfully navigate even the most complex of situations. This book should be on the must-read list of every corporate board member and senior executive.”
Ivan G. Seidenberg, former Chairman and CEO, Verizon Communications; former Chairman, Business Roundtable
This research, complete with compelling anecdotes and practical information, brilliantly explores how creative, flexible, and innovative processes provide the foundation for long-term, sustainable partnerships between the board and the companies they serve. This work captures the true innovation intended to guide the leadership mandate for any board.”
Maggie Wilderotter, Chairman and CEO, Frontier Communications; director, Procter and Gamble and Xerox Corporation
Boards That Lead is chock full of real-world examples that directors can use to improve their leadership and decision makingan impressive one-stop shop outlining board member roles, responsibilities, and actions, including the boundaries that boards and companies often fail to recognize. The checklists for putting this advice into action are comprehensive and practical the best I have seen.”
Synopsis
This book, from three leading experts in the field, will help leaders take advantage of board oversightwhile avoiding the pitfalls. It offers a look at the new dynamics of the boardroom that balance leadership from the board with day-to-day operations of a firm. Ram Charan, Dennis Carey, and Michael Useem present a new road map to help decide when to lead, when to partner, and when to stay out of the way. Based on work with and study of board leaders and chief executives of Fortune 500 firms across the globe.
Synopsis
A Call to LeadershipThe role of the corporate board has changed. Todays smartest CEOs have used this to their benefit. But increased board control and involvement also has its downsides. This book, from three leading experts in the field, serves as a guide to help take advantage of board oversight while avoiding the pitfalls.
Boardroom veterans Ram Charan, Dennis Carey, and Michael Useem have this to say to todays leaders: Chief executives must run the corporation, but directors must also lead the corporation on the most crucial issues. Monitoring and governance matters, but the time has come to rebalance the responsibilities of the board. Directors need to know when to take charge, when to partner, and when to get out of the way.
Charan, Carey, and Useem describe this emerging trend and argue that its overall impact on business performance will be positive. They offer a new roadmap both to CEOs and directors so that senior executives can better balance board oversight with their day-to-day operations of the firm, and directors have a better understanding of when to lead, when to partner, and when to stay out of the way.
Based on work with and study of board leaders and chief executives of Fortune 500 firms across the globe, Boards that Lead is that new roadmap, showing what this new partnership model of leadership looks likeand how to make it work.
About the Author
Ram Charan is a business advisor who has worked with executives and directors of many companies, including Bank of America, Dupont, General Electric, Novartis, and others. He has authored several books, including
Execution (with Larry Bossidy),
What the CEO Wants You to Know, and
Boards That Deliver.
Dennis Carey is Vice Chairman of Korn/Ferry International and specializes in the recruitment of CEOs and corporate directors. He is the coauthor of several books, including CEO Succession: A Window on How Boards Can Get It Right When Choosing a New Chief Executive and How to Run a Company: Lessons from Top Leaders of the CEO Academy.
Michael Useem is Professor of Management and Director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School. Useem works extensively in executive education in the US, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He is the author or coauthor of eight books, including The India Way, Leading Up and The Leadership Moment.