Boards That Lead

The Complete Director’s Checklists

Satirist Ambrose Bierce noted, upon finishing a fulsome work, that “the covers of this book are too far apart.” For those drawn to brevity, we have distilled eighteen checklist principles and questions, broken into several phases, for directors to review just as pilots refer to separate checklists for takeoffs and landings, or as physicians turn to separate checklists for surgeries or emergencies. Treat the principles and questions as a starting foundation around which additional principles and questions are added to focus on special concerns that directors may have at their specific enterprise. If you are about to join a governing board, walk into a board meeting, or become a board leader, explicitly checking ...