Five Essential Mindsets for Board Members

Conventional wisdom about how to build a board isn’t enough these days! The most effective boards are built to add value—and establish, from the very top, the culture and standards for performance that cascade throughout the organization—all while navigating an increasingly complex environment. And the best board members have the right mindsets. These may require some shifts in how we think!

Five mindset shifts that are essential for every member of your board.

Mindset: From Volunteer to Unpaid Professional

Most of the guidance on school and not-for-profit governance defines the role of the board member as noble volunteerism—service. This characterization is accurate, in that board members are generally unpaid and devote their time to a mission, but it’s not helpful in defining the orientation of the board member to their work. 

Board members must see themselves not as volunteers but rather as unpaid professional talent hired to lead and govern an organization with a very serious mission. 

Integral to the shift in mindset from volunteer to unpaid professional is the responsibility each board member has to take an enterprise-wide and long-range perspective, to deeply understand the work of the organization, and to continually learn and develop the capacities that enable them to be effective leaders and stewards.

Mindset: From Technician to Enterprise Leader

The fiduciary responsibilities of governance lend themselves to technical work and board members will generally have particular areas of expertise where they focus their energy (usually within a committee), such as finance and budgeting, investment, development, or buildings. The technical work of a board never goes away—it is necessary to healthy board function, but it is not, in and of itself, what defines high performance. 

Technicians are builders, fixers, and maintainers, generally in an area of expertise. It is natural to thus see oneself as a technician in finance or in real estate and campus planning. One might even say, “That’s why I was asked to join the board.” 

Ideally, all board members are invited to and willingly engage as “Enterprise Leaders”—leaders who are equally responsible for the social and economic welfare of the institution.

When they do this, board members’ technical skills are utilized anew, and they begin to ask questions that are larger than their areas of expertise—questions that test assumptions, probe rationales, and introduce future-focused possibilities. Crucially, they examine the system as a whole and carry a responsibility to guard its health and potential first, aligning their technical work to the larger needs of the organization.

Mindset: From Individual Contributor to Team Player

I often ask board members, “Do you lead, design, and manage your board the same way you would lead, design, and manage your own executive team?” Boards thrive when they function as a high-performing team. 

The best board members see themselves as more than an individual contributor and instead as a member of a team with responsibilities that go well beyond that of their particular role and capabilities. And board leaders must actively cultivate the habits and capabilities of high-performing teams.

Being an effective team does not preclude constructive conflict and healthy debate—these are essential to being an Adaptive Board. However, in the end, a board must make decisions and move forward. Though consensus is unlikely in most important decisions, teams that utilize formal, disciplined processes for discussion, debate, and decisions, leave the boardroom ready to work in unison, with a clear understanding of why and how they will govern. The most successful boards understand that they can achieve the greatest results not as individuals pursuing separate (and potentially contradictory) agendas but by driving positive momentum and substantial results together as a team.

Mindset: From Auditor to Strategist

Fiduciaries must act as auditors of the current operation, but for the organization to thrive, they must also be strategists—continually articulating a vision for the future and rigorously defining the choices that will move the organization towards that vision.  

Board members can at times be over reliant on the past when making tough decisions about who the organization will serve, what it will promise, and how it will play. Strategy attends to the future, and is as much about the imagination and the capacity to take well-considered risks as it is about preservation and compliance (the auditor task).  

Auditors look in the rear-view mirror, using data to assess the integrity and alignment of operations. In this sense, data is helpful to understanding your past and present, but it is not always relevant to who you are becoming in a context that is changing all the time. To be a strategist, a board member must, as Jim Collins advises, “preserve the core and stimulate progress.” This is added work to the responsibilities of a fiduciary and requires a futurist orientation—one that cannot be formed solely by historical data.

Mindset: From Investigator to Pattern Detector

This mindset shift is not unlike the shift from auditor to strategist, but with an important added dimension. Board members, particularly ones who have a network of relationships (friends or employees) and/or exposure to clients, students, donors and community members, will find themselves in the midst of events, experiences, complaints, and concerns that stimulate anxiety. They may be alarmed, personally affected by, or powered by deep curiosity, asking, “What is going on here?” In these moments, the temptation to learn more and react may be high. But in truth, one’s personal experience, or a narrative that is flowing, is a small slice of anecdotal data and not necessarily the whole story. 

When a board member refrains from investigating the issue on their own, and instead brings a higher-level question to the board—such as, “Is there a pattern here and, if so, what do we need to better understand?”—they build a unified, well-considered perspective and approach with both the board and CEO/head of school. When board members shift to pattern detection, they can collect the right data—and enough of it—to really understand the issue. They can ask key questions: “What is the relationship between this pattern and our vision for the future?” or “What are the external forces and changes in climate that underlie what we see now?” And they can align their response to vision and strategy. 

I’ve entered many situations in organizations where the mindset shift to pattern detector has not happened and where the counterproductive “investigator” approach has led to deep crises and a lack of confidence among board members, leaders, and even the entire community. Your board members can help avoid causing crises by embracing a mindset that responds to potential concerns with a professional, enterprise-wide approach. 

Mindset: From “I’m not an expert” to Value Creator

The discussion of mindset often flows to a question board members ask all the time: “How can I add or create value at an organization where I am not an expert?” At schools it is common to hear, “How can I participate in strategy development when I know nothing about teaching and curriculum?” At not-for-profits, board members often express similar hesitation to engage in key decisions that require a more in-depth understanding of the organization’s work.

In truth, when you agree to take on the role of board member, you’ve agreed to become an expert of sorts. Your capacity to lead, govern, and shape the future of your organization depends on it. So, as an unpaid professional, as a strategist, and as a pattern detector, you can go only so far without understanding the work that is the focus of your not-for-profit or educational organization.

I often ask board members, “Who among you currently serve or have served as a corporate director?” There are usually at least a handful of board members who raise their hands. I ask, “How well did you need to understand your business in order to do the job?” Needless to say, all let me know they had much deeper knowledge than they do as school or not-for-profit board members. And there is your answer! 

While this mindset shift is equally important for both educational and not-for-profit board members, I’ve seen extra hesitation to “become an expert” when it comes to education. In my conversations with engaged board members over the years, it’s clear to me that learning about how we learn, learning about what we will need to teach, and learning about how schools do this in myriad and innovative ways is some of the most surprising and deeply rewarding work of board membership. And it’s essential if you aim to raise the bar. 

Why These Mindsets Matter 

Together these five mindsets enable your board members to engage with the real complexities and potential value of governance. Boards must know when and how to lead the way, when and how to make decisions, when and how to collaborate and listen, and when and how to stand back but be firm in support of the organization’s leadership.