The Practitioner’s Guide to Governance as Leadership

Cathy A. Trower, PhD is a senior research associate at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. She is author of the second edition of Richard Chait's book, Govern More, Manage Less. Cathy is nationally known for her expertise on board policies, leadership, structure, organizational change, best governance practices, and strategic planning. She is in high demand as a speaker, consultant, and advisor and works with nonprofit boards independently through her consulting firm, Trower and Trower, Inc.

This book gives nonprofit board leaders a solid resource that shows how to achieve excellence and peak performance in the boardroom by fully realizing and putting into practice, tri-modal governance: proficiency in the three modes of governance (fiduciary, strategic and generative). This model was first introduced in Governance as Leadership . The author showcases the practices of high performing nonprofit boards and provide practical guidance toward optimizing those practices: flow (high skill and high purpose); discernment; deliberation; prudence; divergent thinking; insight; meaningfulness; consequence to the organization; and integrity for improved organizational performance and trustee engagement.

List of Exhibits
 
Foreword (Richard Chait)
 
Preface
 
1 What Is Governance as Leadership?
 
Premises
 
Underlying Assumptions
 
Governance Reform
 
The Three Modes or Mental Maps
 
Why Three Modes?
 
2 Getting Started and Gaining Traction with Governance as Leadership
 
What Is Optimized at Board Meetings?
 
What Is Different about Generative Governance?
 
Moving to Higher Purpose and Optimizing Performance: Beginning the Conversation
 
Moving to Higher Purpose and Optimizing Performance: Getting Started
 
Moving to Higher Purpose and Optimizing Performance: Getting Traction
 
3 Encouraging Critical Thinking in the Boardroom
 
Critical Thinking and Metacognition
 
Getting on the Balcony
 
Ways of Thinking
 
Impediments to Critical Thinking
 
Cognitive Biases and Board Workarounds
 
Social Loafing
 
Groupthink
 
Avoiding Groupthink and Its Close Cousins
 
4 Turning Your Board into a High-Performing Team
 
Social Systems
 
Groups and Teams
 
Boards as Teams
 
Effective Board Teams in the Context of Governance as Leadership
 
5 Creating a Governance-as-Leadership Culture
 
Culture
 
Three Toxic Cultures
 
Culture Change
 
Culture Conducive to Governance as Leadership
 
Tools to Support a "Governance as Leadership-Friendly" Culture
 
6 What Governance as Leadership Requires of Leaders
 
Adaptive and Technical Work
 
Adaptive Leadership
 
The Paradoxes of Adaptive Leaders
 
Boards as Viewed by Executives
 
The Effective CEO in General
 
The Effective Governance as Leadership CEO
 
The Effective Board Chair in General
 
The Effective Governance as Leadership Board Chair
 
The Dynamic Duo: CEO and Chair
 
7 Measuring and Sustaining Governance as Leadership
 
Measuring Board Performance
 
Sustaining Governance as Leadership
 
Epilogue
 
References
 
Acknowledgments
 
About the Author
 
Index