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the board and leadership lab llc

Advancing Board and Leadership Excellence

About Us

ABOUT US

We're on a mission to build high-performing boards and leaders.

Whether you serve on a board or are in an executive role, increasingly it takes more skill and effort to guide, inspire, and influence others to achieve strategic objectives.

We believe knowledge is power. As organizational psychologists, we leverage social science research and cutting-edge practices to provide insights to harness the collective wisdom of a board or leadership team, and raise awareness of the sometimes hidden factors that can either promote or hinder a board or leader's ability to manage business challenges.

We believe each board and organization is unique. We take time to understand your goals and circumstances and work in close partnership to design tangible actions to maximize your board or leadership team's contributions.

OUR CAPABILITIES

EMPOWERING HIGH PERFORMING BOARDS

There is a big difference in the effectiveness of a board that is ad-hoc and primarily focuses on day-to-day management issues versus a board that prioritizes long-term strategy and collectively engages management to enable better decisions. Irrespective of where your board sits on this continuum, we provide the tools, resources, and intelligence, to enable the board to more pro-actively manage opportunities and challenges and uphold the highest fiduciary standards.

DEVELOPING HIGH PERFORMING LEADERS

The bar for leaders continues to evolve. In today's business environment, leaders need to have a much broader set of skills and know-how to lead in conditions of uncertainty and complexity. We help to clarify capabilities needed for current and future performance and work closely with leaders to identity their individual strengths and adapt strategies to perform to their highest ability.

CEO EVALUATION AND SUCCESSION PLANNING

CEO turnover continues to be on the rise*. One of the most important responsibilities of boards is to ensure that the board and CEO are aligned on performance expectations and a realistic CEO succession plan is in place. We help to clarify the current and future needs of the organization and ensure that the board is fully prepared to act in the event of any planned or unplanned CEO exit.

* Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. April 1, 2025

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Research and Case Studies

OUR PERSPECTIVES

What You Measure, Matters.

Not all board assessments are the same. Many assessments can be performative, confirming what the board already knows and unintentionally providing a false sense of security that the board is performing optimally. When organizations are performing well, this may not have any serious implications, but when organizations experience stress, are faced with new unknowns or decisions, a passive or underperforming board won't have developed the strategies and necessary inter-personal dynamics to pro-actively address and resolve business challenges.

A well-designed assessment will confirm how the board is performing against foundational metrics, but it will also explore key psycho-dynamic elements that are critical to the board's functioning to meet a variety of unexpected challenges. How a survey question is framed will also yield very different answers. We are skilled in designing both qualitative and quantitative measures to ensure any assessment will yield new and actionable information.

May 2025