Every #Board in our opinion should consider themselves (or work towards being) brave. Board Members would otherwise be living a quiet routine life, attending to their own personal commitments instead of putting their names, their reputation, their skills and even their lives at stake for a purpose that is normally higher than them.

To every aspiring Board Member, you must ask yourself WHY. Why do you desire to serve an organisation, add on legal liability, often work with insufficient information yet make decisions and promote a business that in most cases you did not start appeals to you. Yes, there may be personal or professional status growth, possible financial gain, career self actualisation and many other (natural) reasons, but the most significant should be the desire to impact, grow and watch others succeed and cheering them along the way.

So if you and other Board Members are altruistically aligned for the benefit of your organisation, these are some of the attributes to being a Shujaa Board:

1. A Shujaa Board is aligned to the #Vision and #Mission of the Organisation. Board Members should be sold the organisation’s vision AND, tasked to demonstrate on how they can add value to the current progress of the organisation. If there is no mutual value proposition, then that shall not lead to Shujaa decisions and guidance.
2. A Shujaa Board promotes good #governance by having in place the best practice frameworks that are suitable for an organisation. They can be guided by the following pillars;
*People- does the organisation have the right management and staff working with the right skills?
*Information- does the Board know what information they need and what architecture is needed for succict yet comprehensive reports that can guide decision making?
* Board dynamics- has the board found its rhythm and do members feel safe and free to contribute. One indicator is whether the board is constantly debating or having dialogues. If debates are necessary, they must be moderated and respectful.
3. A Shujaa Board is diverse in composition and has within itself chosen the right Chairperson who is respected, is wise, can moderate and build consensus and is an effective sounding board for the #CEO. As well the Board should also decide whether they can benefit from additional committees in order to pay specific attention to certain areas of the business
4. A Shujaa board makes use of performance management techniques e.g #evaluations. It can be unnerving to receive feedback, but feedback without a path to followup would not be useful to a Board.
5. A Shujaa Board uses historical information but its focus is always #strategic and future facing. In addition, a Board is aware of new tools/ ways of doing business and considers their adoption for the organisation to remain competitive.

Reach out to Akira Consult to evaluate and build a path to having or being a Shujaa Board