"Board Culture Drives Growth" an article by Bharat Dhawan for CFO Connect Magazine
How can a board become more effective? and how can it play the type of leadership role that helps a business achieve its full potential and create enduring value for stakeholders and society at large? To a great extent, this depends on the board’s culture – which not only sets the tone for the business, but also subtly underlines the values, beliefs and norms of the company as a whole. broadly, there are two sets of factors that govern culture: ‘hard’ ones, which describe its formal structures and processes; and ‘soft’ factors, such as the personal attributes of different board members, their interpersonal relationships, and the way they work together towards a common goal. Often, corporate cultures focus on ‘hard’ issues, while tending to neglect the ‘softer’ ones, which are frequently only implied, rather than made explicit. in this article, we discuss four types of board culture – looking at both behaviours and outcomes – and offer some practical steps to inculcate a ‘healthy’ culture in any business.
