What once felt like isolated moments of volatility have become the daily reality of corporate life, requiring board chairs who can be firm, reliable and forward-looking while remaining agile and empathic. Marianna Zangrillo and Thomas Keil explore how chairs must champion long-term value creation even when efficiency pressures encourage cost-cutting.
As we are about to enter a new year, boards face a need for renewal that sounds just too familiar: how to reset expectations, revisit priorities and reenergize the leadership team. However, this time something seems new. Geopolitical tension has become a daily topic, regulatory landscapes have reached a degree of complexity never seen before, new technologies are disrupting established business models at remarkable speed, and stakeholder expectations are becoming increasingly multi-faceted. Turbulence is no longer the occasional event, and volatility has become pretty much an ongoing reality. In this unsettled environment, the role of the board chair stands out as one of the most consequential in governance.
What distinguishes an exceptional chair today is no longer mastery of process or a long history of board service but the ability to lead through ambiguity with steadiness and clarity, to simplify complexity into insight and to cultivate a board culture where directors can think courageously, challenge constructively and display decisiveness. Leadership in this context is not about controlling events but about equipping the board to interpret them wisely and respond decisively.
1. The chair as chief context-setter
Boards today face an increasingly fragmented information landscape. Risk assessments are more complicated, regulatory updates change at unprecedented speed and geopolitical briefings are filled with complexity. In calmer periods, this volume could be managed with methodical discipline. In ongoing turbulence, however, it can obscure what truly deserves attention, overwhelming even seasoned directors and diluting the clarity required for good judgment.
This is precisely where the chair’s role becomes pivotal. Effective chairs must transition from distributing information to interpreting it, framing discussions in a way that helps the board focus on what matters most. By framing each discussion with a clear strategic narrative and highlighting interdependencies, they enable the board to find common ground in discussions and facilitate decision-making, ultimately allowing the board to navigate uncertainty more confidently and steadily.
2. The chair as guardian of board culture
In this environment, a strong board culture is not a nice-to-have but the foundation of effective governance and internal dynamics must become steadier and more intentional. Good chairs know that culture needs active shaping, and they must play a role in creating psychological safety through simple but meaningful gestures, such as acknowledging their own limits, drawing quieter directors into the dialogue or making it clear that difficult or unrefined questions are acceptable.
Good chairs also make it clear that constructive challenge is expected, reminding everyone that thoughtful and productive disagreement helps create clarity rather than conflict. By strengthening shared accountability and emphasizing that strategic oversight is everyone’s job, they help build the culture boards need in turbulent times, which must be open, curious and focused.
3. The chair as orchestrator of board processes
With heighted turbulence, the rhythm of board work has to change. Strategy must be woven into every board meeting, committee conversation, management briefing and every decision the board takes. Resilience must be built in anticipation, not only in response to crises. Governance can no longer rely on rigid, step-by-step processes and needs to shift toward more flexible, learning-driven approaches that can adjust to crises and disruption.
In this changing environment, effective chairs introduce practical mechanisms for foresight, brief scenario exercises, targeted expert briefings, early-warning indicators and focused reviews or short-term task forces when necessary. By doing so, they establish a thoughtful cadence that supports informed, steady judgment rather than reactive decision-making.
4. The chair as relationship architect with the CEO
Few relationships shape an organization’s direction as profoundly as the one between the chair and the CEO. In stable times, routine updates may suffice. In turbulence, however, ambiguity and change require a relationship that is more open, fluid and grounded in trust, one where early signals, half-formed concerns and emerging risks can be discussed long before they become fully visible. Skilled chairs create an environment where the CEO can highlight an uncertain regulatory development, geopolitical shift or a fragile supplier issue without fear of premature judgment.
This openness strengthens, not softens, the chair’s oversight role. By engaging in shared sense-making and combining transparency with constructive challenge, chairs help senior leaders navigate uncertainty and complexity with confidence, humility and strategic steadiness.
5. The chair as curator of board composition
In a period defined by overlapping risks and rapidly emerging opportunities, board composition becomes a strategic instrument. Chairs must think several years ahead, recognizing that future challenges will demand new forms of expertise and fresh cognitive perspectives. A board’s collective ability to interpret a shifting world depends on the breadth and depth of the voices around the table.
Modern chairs must broaden the board’s talent pool by seeking directors with novel backgrounds, such as public policy, digital regulation, in addition to cybersecurity, emerging technologies and sustainability. They value geographic and generational diversity, which sharpens sensitivity to global signals and societal change. But they must also know how to integrate these diverse perspectives, question assumptions and anticipate change with coherence and confidence.
6. The chair as calm center in a world of volatility
Perhaps more than anything else, the modern chair must embody a sense of steadiness when the organization needs to adapt. In times of rapid change or intense public scrutiny, both the board and management need intellectual and emotional grounding. A chair’s presence can calm anxieties, or heighten them, depending on the tone they set and the way they carry themselves in the room.
A measured, composed chair helps the board think with greater clarity even when information is incomplete or ambiguous. A chair who resists temptation to collapse issues into simple binaries — crisis or calm, threat or opportunity — encourages directors to approach decisions with nuance. By anchoring discussions in long-term purpose rather than short-term noise, they prevent the board from slipping into reactive behavior. Steadiness, in this sense, is not passivity but leadership in its most essential and enduring forms.
7. The chair as steward of long-term value
Another important risk in periods of change and uncertainty is being drawn toward short-term responses, focusing on what seems immediately pressing while overlooking more defining issues that should determine long-term direction, resilience and strategic health. Effective chairs help the board counter this tendency by consistently steering discussions back to long-term value creation, treating it as a disciplined, practical lens through which every major decision should be examined.
Chairs must also champion investments that strengthen resilience even when efficiency pressures might encourage cost-cutting. They promote technology choices grounded in ethics and transparency, ensuring innovation enhances rather than undermines public trust. And they reinforce the importance of sustainability and stakeholder engagement, recognizing that reputation is not a byproduct of strategy but a strategic asset in its own right.
A new year, and a new kind of leadership
What once felt like isolated moments of volatility have become the daily reality of corporate life. Chairs now operate where turbulence is expected, and their capacity to be firm, reliable, forward-looking, while still remaining agile and empathic has become the gold standard for successful board chairs.
Marianna Zangrillo and Thomas Keil are leading experts in leadership, strategy and corporate transformation and are co-authors of “The Next Board: Delivering Value Today while Making the Board Fit for Tomorrow” published in 2025. 
