Questions

Strategic leadership

• Is your board effective in giving direction?
• Has it clearly articulated its expectations about the outcomes or results the organisation should deliver?
• Is the vision a widely shared one that is sustainable by future boards or is it dependent largely on the thinking and energy of one person.
• In what type of deliberations is your board primarily engaged – those that relate to designing the future or those that relate to minding the shop?
• Does your board have a simple, brief document that sets out its sense of strategic direction, priorities, etc.?

Stakeholder relations

• Who are your ‘owners’ and how does the board express its accountability to them?
• Have you defined the organisation’s other key stakeholders and how the board expects the organisation to relate to them?
• Does the board treat all stakeholder issues in the same way or does it have a clear sense of which issues and which relationships are really important?

Strategic risk management

• Does the board regularly and systematically review the risks facing the organisation?
• Has it clearly agreed and communicated the level of risk it is prepared to tolerate in relation to critical organisational performance factors?
• Does it have clear policies in place that define boundaries within which the chief executive can operate without further reference to the board?
• Is the board satisfied there are contingency plans in place to deal with risks that cannot be controlled or mitigated?