Characteristics and skills of future-focused directors

There’s little doubt we are within an era of change.

Boards need directors equipped with the skills and characteristics to manoeuvre and manage in a complex and swiftly moving environment.

The message coming through is that Boards must be agile – able to adapt to changing conditions – and at the same time ensure they remain true to their organisation’s mission and goals.

Just as operating environments and challenges have changed and become more complex, so too have the requirements of directorship.

Boards now need to be comprised of future-focused directors – people who have the skills and characteristics needed to anticipate and prepare for change.

Whilst leadership needs to be future-focused, directors must understand that the future is now. It’s already here and no-longer a long-term project and those directors and Boards who haven’t yet moved to adapt and skill themselves to manage in this new operating landscape are already behind.

When it comes to leadership in the boardroom, expertise and experience still count but there are certain characteristics and skills beyond qualifications that count at least as much, if not more in some cases.

Six characteristics and skills for directors of the future

Setting qualifications and expertise aside, there are six characteristics and skills directors can cultivate to enhance their contribution as a leader.

Communication

Directors will increasingly need to bring high level communications skills to the table. This means being an active listener, seeking to question rather than tell, and having the ability to contribute to robust discussion around the board table in a collaborative way as well as hold executives accountable through positive engagement.

Information seeking

Directors should be challenging the status quo and as such always seeking information about changes to the business environment, and critically, using all available information they can gather rather than relying only on what is provided to them by management. This is more vital in such a complex and changing environment.

There is also an expectation that directors understand community sentiment and as such directors need to ensure they know what that sentiment is and then use that understanding as the basis for the kind of information they seek. For example if they know there is a strong interest in environmental matters amongst the community their organisation serves, then a director would naturally seek information from both management and outside sources about how the organisation impacts the environment, climate change policies, and innovation opportunities around positive environmental changes.

Emotional intelligence

Possessing a high level of self-awareness of their own biases and how those biases impact thoughts, choices and interactions is also vital for effective decision-making, particularly in complex environments. An awareness of others and their behaviours, traits and biases also contributes to effective discussions.

Relationship building

This is an evolving concept for directors. In the past, we have been told that we shouldn’t have a direct relationship with stakeholders, including members/shareholders and customers. Now this message is shifting and effective boards need to understand the sentiment of those groups to be able to implement decisions that they would regard are in the best interests of a company. Of interest is the fact that this group is widening to include the public at large, employees, fellow board members, and regulators.

Achievement orientated

Future-focused directors see achievement and success beyond a set of financial reports. They view decisions through a lens of improvement rather than maintaining a status quo. They seek achievement at the personal level (professional and personal development of the individual); professional level (building professionalism around the board table); and organisation level (building reputation and organisational success).

Complexity management

As directors, we work in an environment where no one decision is made in isolation. Even decisions made repeatedly (for example, ongoing manufacturing contracts) will have differing circumstances each time they are made. This means directors need to be able to consider the complexity of the operating environment and the impact of a single decision throughout the different life-cycle of an organisation, and be able to reassess the market, buyer expectation, and legislative changes among other things, with each and every decision.