The Practitioner's Guide to Governance as Leadership: Building High-Performing Nonprofit Boards Book

List of Exhibits, Figures, and Tables? xiii

Foreword Richard Chait xvii

Preface xxi

Chapter 1 The Governance as Leadership Model 1

Premises 2

Underlying Assumptions 2

Governance Reform 3

The Three Modes or Mental Maps 4

Why Three Modes? 14

Chapter 2 Getting Started and Gaining Traction with Governance as Leadership 21

What Is Optimized at Board Meetings? 22

What Is Different about Generative Governance? 22

Moving to Higher Purpose and Optimizing Performance: Beginning the Conversation 23

Moving to Higher Purpose and Optimizing Performance: Getting Started 26

Moving to Higher Purpose and Optimizing Performance: Getting Traction 33

Chapter 3 Encouraging Critical Thinking in the Boardroom 47

Critical Thinking and Metacognition 48

Getting on the Balcony 50

Ways of Thinking 51

Impediments to Critical Thinking 54

Cognitive Biases and Board Workarounds 62

Social Loafing 70

Groupthink 71

Avoiding Groupthink and Its Close Cousins 77

Chapter 4 Turning Your Board into a High-Performing Team 85

Social Systems 86

Groups and Teams 87

Boards as Teams 89

Effective Board Teams in the Context of Governance as Leadership 91

Chapter 5 Creating a Governance-as-Leadership Culture 125

Culture 126

Three Toxic Cultures 128

Culture Change 131

Culture Conducive to Governance as Leadership 132

Tools to Support a "Governance as Leadership-Friendly" Culture 143

Chapter 6 What Governance as Leadership Requires of Leaders 169

Leadership 170

Chapter 7 Measuring and Sustaining Governance as Leadership 187

Measuring Board Performance 188

Sustaining Governance as Leadership 211

Epilogue 215

References 217

Acknowledgments 221

The Author 227

Boardsource 229

Index 231