Getting The Perfect CEO Mentor For Your Company

7/31/2019 Getting The Perfect CEO Mentor For Your Company

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Making It To The Top

www.boardportfolio.com.au

Copyright 2012


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2 | M a k i n g I t T o T h e T o p

TABLE OF CONTENTS

4 Guarantee Your Companys Success

By Using Board Portfolio Services

Choosing The Right Career Consultant 6

To Execute A Thorough Board Search

8 How Programs On Executive Portfolios Can

Help Advance Your High-Calibre Career

Three Things That Executive Career 10

Management Can Do For You

11 Reasons Why You Should Use Board

Search Firms For Board Appointments

Three Tips That Can Help Companies 13

Looking To Fill In A Board Vacancy


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15 Things Needed For A Successful

Partnership With Your CEO Mentor

What Are Mentoring Programs For CEOs 17

And What Should You Look For In A Mentor?

19 What Is An Advisory Board And How

Can Having One Help Your Organisation?

Things To Consider Before Hiring 21

Your Board Of Directors


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Guarantee Your Companys Success By

Using Board Portfolio Services

Your companys body of workers serves as the backbone

that supports effective business operations. However,

the brains behind a companys success will always come

from a pool of talented and dedicated directors. If you want to guarantee the

success of your business, then you should start by hiring only the best people to

serve as leaders and provide measures that can help maintain high standards for

excellence within your company.

Of course, you can always seek the best talents in the field by yourself, and you

can also provide measures to evaluate and constantly improve director

performance without any outside help. However, if you want to save time and

company resources, and if you want to be sure of the quality of service provided

for you, then its better to just turn to experts from Board Portfolio, Australias

number one group of board consultants. Detailed below are some services

offered by Board Portfolio and how these can be of benefit to your company:

Board appointments and recruitment - Whether you are just building your new

company or youre relaunching an old one, it is very important for you to find and

appoint only the most competent individuals to lead your business. However, this

objective is easier said than done, and hiring talented executives can be truly

difficult, especially if youre new to business. Board Portfolio consultants and

advisers can easily assist you in finding the best leaders because of their extensive

experience in this area. The company keeps tabs on the careers of the industrys

most powerful leaders, and can readily recommend one (or a whole board) for

you. The consultants from the company can also directly approach qualified
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candidates to negotiate for you, maintaining confidentiality to ensure your

companys image.

Executive coaching - Once you have hired the

perfect leaders for your company, you can ensure

that their talents and leadership abilities will not

become stagnant by providing regular evaluation

and instruction on effective management. By

availing of executive coaching, you can help

company directors and CEOs further improve their

game which in the long run, will be of benefit to

both your executives and the company they work for.

Board advisory - A successful business provides means

for performance evaluation and improvement not only

for its top employees, but also for the rest of the

company. Board advisory services from Board Portfolio

can help you assess how your company is performing,and reveal problem areas that need to be addressed

quickly, as well as exemplary practices that should be

continued. After all, although your directors are still the key figures in your

companys success, the rest of your workers and the nature of your operations

are also major contributors.
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Choosing The Right Career Consultant To Execute A

Thorough Board Search

In earlier decades, businesses and organisations

resorted to one recruitment solution to find the best

candidates to fill positions within their teams: posting

advertisements. Either through the newspapers or over

the Internet, companies before made a genuine effort

to compose a clear and concise advertisement

indicating the position they need to hire for and theselection criteria that interested applicants must meet. While releasing such job

advertisements is undoubtedly effective, there's no question that there's always a

chance that news of the job opening failed to reach a highly qualified candidate,

resulting in a missed opportunity.

These days, however, it is no longer enough to simply release an announcement

of a job opening and expect the right applicants to walk into the recruitment

officeespecially for top-level positions that require candidates with several

years of experience and a decided expertise in his field. A more effective way for

companies to find and recruit the right executives for their purposesor for a

highly skilled professional to secure a position in a successful company's board of

directorsis to hire a career consultant to perform a board search.

A talent management and career consultancy firm would have several years of

combined experience across its pool of human resource experts and executives to

match the right company with the best professional to complete their board of

senior members and contribute to the growth and development of the

organisation. Compared to releasing an advertisement for a position, hiring a
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board search consultant with an extensive network of top-notch companies and

ideal candidates would result in quicker, more informed, and more compatible

hirings.

A senior executive consultant with a thorough knowledge of workplace trends

and movements and corporate dynamics can help companies effectively obtain a

high quality board of directors. The services of such a professional would also

prove invaluable to individuals seeking to beef up their corporate biographies,

make the right business connections, and secure senior management positions in

the top companies within their industry. Who better to turn to for board

appointment and career development advice, indeed, than an expert executive

coach?

The success of a company and of an executive's professional development lies in a

perfect fit; senior executives need to be assigned roles wherein their expertise

and exceptional business perceptions can be utilised to the greatest advantage,

while companies require the most experienced, innovative-thinking, adaptable,

and creative minds to help move the company in the right direction. A consultantwith expertise in career management and mentoring can help both parties

achieve the results they are looking for in the most effective manner possible.

Leaving the fate of your career or your board's performance to chance is unwise.

Consulting a career expert to guide individuals and companies through a board

searchcan be the best recruitment move yet.
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How Programs On Executive Portfolios Can Help

Advance Your High-Calibre Career

The top-ranking executive today annihilates the stereotype of someone with a

well-placed career. Corporate leaders in the past had been typically depicted as

hardworking, cunning, dedicated and also comfortable and settled down with

their position until retirement stage. Their careers follow a rational, linear path

you can easily track from the moment they said yes to their first job offer up to

their rise to the top.

Todays high-level professionals, on the other hand,

run on more dynamic and transformative directions.

Theyre not sitting pretty inside air-conditioned

offices; theyre busy building executive portfolios

presentations that showcase their leadership

capabilities. Its not that theyre always on the

lookout for greener pastures (although this is also a

valid motivation for seeking success). The

phenomenon is more so because of the increasingly competitive, highly mobile

and decidedly global corporate environment today.

Due to constant changes in the economic and political sphere, what may be a

stable industry can collapse unexpectedly. A seemingly established firm can

suddenly need to let go of its most prized talents; on the other side, even the very

loyal employee can be given an opportunity to jump ship that can be impossible

to let go. The quest to step up an already high-calibre career is not just a goal for

success, but also for survival.


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Todays crme de la crme of the corporate world board directors, chief

executive officers, senior-level managers, chairpersons, captains of industry are

now seeking invitations to the most intensiveexecutive portfoliosprograms that

provide them career strategies and connect them with the right referrals.

The best executive programs include results-driven approaches that not just

showcase the talent, but also provide fresh insights on revitalising ones career.

Seeking board appointments or enhancing an already established board portfolio,

for instance, can sometimes provide a career boost more than a promotion or a

salary increase. The program can help a member manage an impressive of

portfolio of board appointments, directorship roles or non-executive directorship,

as this growing trend signals the new breed of industry leaders today.

Another service, the business mentoring and

executive coaching, involves intensive and insightful

one-on-one sessions that can provide a clear strategyfor every career move. From enhancing

communications skills, to empowering the business

image, to targeting key directorship and management

issues every component that will influence a high-

level career path will be reviewed and improved.

By partnering with a career coaching leader, a high-level, high-performing

professional can dramatically transform her career from merely successful to

simply stellar.
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Three Things That Executive Career Management Can

Do For You

There is a saying that goes, no man is an island, and what this adage tries to tell

people is that no one can function alone even if he or she appears to already

have everything needed to survive or succeed. This is especially true for senior

managers and company executives; although it is possible for you to already

possess all the necessary skills and expertise for you to achieve your current rank,

this doesnt mean that you dont need help anymore for your career to reach

even greater heights.

The truth is that if youre already at the top, youll

need even more assistance for you to have

greater accomplishments. This is because your

skills might have already reached a threshold for

success, and youll need to improve yourself to be

able to face more difficult challenges ahead. After

all, there are also sayings telling people that

nobody is perfect and that there is always room for improvement. If youre

already in a high-ranking position but you still want to further your career, then

maybe you should consider executive career management. Listed below are three

things that career managers can do to help you achieve your greatest potential:

They offer an external perspective that can objectively

assess your career history and experiences. In most

cases, a person in an executive position has already

spent so much time in one career field. After all, one

way to secure a top position in any given field is by


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working for many years and specialising in that area. This highly specialised

training may indeed be helpful in gaining the necessary experience for a

leadership position, but its also likely that it will result in some biases that can

affect your view of your career. Executive career management specialists can help

get rid of these partialities and help you figure out your true strength and

weaknessesand how you can best utilise them.

They provide real-time assessments to keep you on track. Working with a career

coach does help you find your best qualities and use them. These coaches also

help provide ways for you to achieve your goals, whether its through additional

training or by switching careers. However, all these efforts will become worthless

if you dont have a means to keep track of your progress. Executive career

management not only helps assess your careers growth, this service also ensures

that you stick to your goals until you achieve them.

They help you attain a sense of balance between work and personal life. While

career success may be perceived by many as reaching the highest position in a

company, the truth is it is so much more than that. With executive careermanagement, you can achieve a balance between work and personal affairs, a

feat that will ultimately make it easy for you to be a success in the corporate

world.

Reasons Why You Should Use Board Search Firms For

Board Appointments

Looking for highly qualified individuals to fill in key positions in a companys board

of directors is not a simple task, and this is particularly true even if youre just


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appointing members for your first board or looking for executives after decades

of experience in the business. What makes this task difficult is not the shortage in

supply of eligible candidates there are more than enough capable leaders in

business, but most of them are already happily employed. The real obstacle is

finding one who is willing to transfer jobs and take on a role in a different

company.

You will face many hurdles when searching for good

candidates forboard appointments, and this includes

the lack of visibility of executives to job postings and

advertisements (note that most are already

employed and thus less likely to submit applications)

and the stigma that comes from stealing another

companys employee. However, these problems can

be alleviated by using board search firms. Listed

below are some reasons why specialised search is your best option for filling in

board vacancies:

Save time and resources - Manual searching for executive

candidates will require you to draft and edit a job posting,

and then submit these to the necessary channels for

advertisement. Once you have successfully publicised

your companys need to fill in board appointments, you

will then face another time- and resource-consuming

challenge: sifting through the numerous aspiring

applicants. The issue with this is that not all applicants

who respond to your job posting will be qualified for the post. However, this

doesnt mean that you can just ignore their applications; you will still have to

check on their credentials, a process that will definitely cost time and company

resources. On the other hand, board recruiters can recommend and directly
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approach eligible candidates for you, which is a much faster process than lying in

wait for jobseekers to apply.

Ensure quality - Board search firms are not like regular recruitment services in

that they only check credentials once an applicant has submitted a resume.

Instead, these specialists keep tabs on the industrys leaders. Not only will an

executive recruiter keep notes on candidates accomplishments, he or she can

also perform necessary background checks on these potential hires. In addition,

most specialised search firms also watch out for budding new leaders in the

business, and may even recommend these promising talents to companies that

are raring for new blood.

Maintain confidentiality - Its not a good idea for company owners to directly

approach candidates for board appointments as this can create a negative image

for the establishment. With a board recruiter by your side, you can approach,

negotiate, and eventually sign executives from other companies without stirring

up any controversies.

Three Tips That Can Help Companies

Looking To Fill In A Board Vacancy

Choosing suitable members for your companysboard is often a gruelling and stressful task. After all,

its not easy to search for good, available talents with appropriate credentials.

There are many establishments that provide recruitment services that can help

companies suffering a board vacancy fill in the position. Working with these firms

offers a lot of benefits, such as great time and resource savings and getting a


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guarantee for high quality hires. To make the most of the convenience offered by

recruitment companies, listed below are three tips to make the whole transaction

a much smoother process:

Work with the right kind of recruitment firm. This is

perhaps the most important tip for companies who are

looking for nominees for a board vacancy. Of course, if

you are looking for an executive, it only makes sense to

go to a recruitment firm that specialises in hunting for

such talents. Going to a regular firm will only be a waste

of time, since such services cannot recommend potential

hires quickly.

Regular recruiters, more often than not, simply post job advertisements and

screen applicants for hiring companies. On the other hand, specialised

recruitment firm keeps track of major industry leaders and can easily recommend

qualified executives who can meet your criteria. A board search firm can also

approach a candidate directly and negotiate offers in behalf of your company, aservice that regular recruiters rarely do, if they ever do it all.

Be realistic about your expectations. A lot of companies make use of services from

board search firms expecting that this kind of recruitment can deliver miracles

for their company. While it is true that board recruiters (or headhunters) will

definitely work hard to find the best candidates to fill in a board vacancy, this

doesnt mean that you will be able to hire just about any executive you can think

of. There are lots of factors that can affect the availability of an executive for your

offered position, and these include industry, schedule, and geography, to name a

few. Even with their persistence, board search firms still experience a greater

number of turndowns when approaching Fortune 500 execs.
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Determine who will make the final decision on the hire and make sure that search

firms know who this person (or group) is. Most of the time, companies create

committees that will make the final decision as to whom to hire for a boardvacancy. In some cases, the CEO performs a more active role. Either way is fine,

but make sure that there are no squabbles amongst company personnel

regarding the final decision, as this can serve as a warning to recruiters about the

state of your company.

Things Needed For A Successful Partnership With YourCEO Mentor

Undergoing extensive training, acquiring all the possible

business degrees, and enrolling in every management

seminar and leadership workshop can indeed help you

land a high-ranking job. However, executives are chosennot only for their personal accomplishments but mostly

because they have demonstrated qualities that make

them suitable for such demanding roles. While working

with a career coach can help you attain all the technical training needed for a

person of high rank, this kind of executive support does not necessarily instil in

individuals the wisdom necessary to lead a company. The best way for you to gain

such insight is by tapping into the experiences of someone who has been in the

business of leading for a long time: aCEO mentor.

Mentoring with a seasoned CEO will truly be helpful if your aim is to acquire

wisdom for the role. However, not all CEOs can be effective teachers, and not all


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mentees make for good students. There are certain

things that both mentors and apprentices should

practice for the partnership to become truly

productive. For instance, the CEO mentor should

exhibit much patience and understanding when

sharing insights with a new executive. This is

particularly important since not all new senior

managers are equipped with the wisdom for such a role. In addition to patience

and understanding, CEO mentors should demonstrate a willingness to share

relevant experiences and sound advice; after all, the exchange will be worthless if

he or she is not keen on imparting lessons learned from the job.

On the other hand, an apprentice executive should not be so proud as to reject

guidance from a more knowledgeable person a mentors willingness to teach

can only be complemented by the mentees commitment to learning. It is also

very important for mentees to be good listeners as well as proactive workers.

After all, the advice given by a CEO mentor will only become meaningful when put

into practice.

Both CEO mentors and the novice executives under

their guidance should remember that the success of

this partnerships lies on honesty, mutual respect, and

trust. With all these things present, both can expect

good results. For budding executives, of course,

mentoring will help them attain qualities that will

help make them good leaders, such as foresight,

respect for other employees, confidence, and a sense

of empowerment.


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With the help of a CEO mentor, new executives can also learn about the culture

and unwritten rules regarding the business, as well as how to deal with difficult

situations, such as office politics, with much grace and wisdom. CEO mentors, on

the other hand, can gain satisfaction from being a contributor to someones

growth and success. Mentoring can also improve their own performance, since

teachers can always learn a thing or two from their own students.

What Are Mentoring Programs For

CEOs And What Should You Look For

In A Mentor?

There are two different ways for senior managers and

prospective company leaders to achieve their greatest

potential at work. The first is by executive career coaching, while the second

option is by enrolling in mentoring programs for CEOs. It is important to

distinguish between these two different kinds of executive support, because evenif they do have the same goals, their respective areas of focus are not the same.

The former focuses on the acquisition of necessary

skills and experiences to help gear you towards a

career in leadership. This means helping you acquire

certifications, additional degrees like an MBA, or even

going through management seminars to improve your

organisational techniques. Executive coaching also

means working with a career coach, a person who is

familiar with your field of business, like a line manager

or a colleague within the same department. This coach


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can readily assess your skills and provide real-time feedback on your careers

progress. At the same time, career coaches can also recommend ways for you to

build on your strengths and correct your problematic work habits.

On the other hand, working with a mentor places emphasis on gaining the

necessary wisdom to become a leader. Of course, a mentor also can also give the

same kind of support offered by a career coach. While CEO mentors will indeed

offer advice on how to attain required skills for the position and give you

feedback, their focus is on building leadership characteristics that will make you

more capable of handling highly demanding executive roles in the future.

Mentoring programs for CEOs focus primarily on giving less experienced

employees some insights that can ultimately direct their personal growth and

development towards that of a good leader. This is an important difference from

executive coaching because not all coaches can give the same level of leadership

advice or insight as someone who has first-hand experience in running a

company.

If you are interested in enrolling inmentoring programs for CEOs, it is important

for you to choose your mentor wisely. While almost all CEOs are truly capable of

leading large organisations, not all make for very effective teachers. Besides being

experienced and knowledgeable, a great mentor should also be patient,

supportive, encouraging, trustworthy and honest. He or she should also be a good

listener and communicator. Other things that are truly important for a productive

mentor-mentee relationship include a willingness to teach and spend time and

the capability to maintain confidentiality. Although the mentor holds the upper

hand in this partnership and the mentee requires his service, there should never

be a lack of respect from either side.


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What Is An Advisory Board And How Can Having One

Help Your Organisation?

Most people are familiar with the roles and functions of a companys board of

directors; this group of high-powered corporate officials serves as the leaders and

brains behind the growth and success of a business. Companies will, of course,

take measures to ensure that only the best leaders are included in this highly

exclusive committee. The question is, if you already have the best and most

knowledgeable people in business acting as your companys executives, why is it

still necessary to hire anadvisory boardfor support?

To answer this question, it is necessary to define first

what advisory boards really are. This group of advisors

is usually an unofficial committee comprised of

volunteers who offer support for the companys board

of directors. Representatives from an advisory board,

according to legislation, do not have the power to

make decisions for a company; members of this group

serve only to provide their expertise and knowledge in certain fields to aid CEOs

and the other directors in making decisions. For most companies, this group

consists of a financial advisor, a legal expert (or a few), a marketing specialist, an

accountant, and an expert on human resources. Each one serves to complement a

certain niche in the business, and companies may add more members with

various areas of specialisation depending on the companys needs.

What exactly do members of the board of advisors do? As mentioned previously,

this group of experts mainly provide their knowledge and expertise to help

company directors in decision making. Some members of an advisory board may


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be given more specific tasks within the company; however, most advisors simply

attend company meetings and provide input and feedback on important

discussions. This might seem like a redundant role, especially since the companys

directors are already some of the top-notch minds in business.

What most people fail to realise, however, is that advisory

boards provide the companys link to the general public.

Since members of this group are not really affiliated with

the establishment, they can provide a more objective

perspective from outside the company, a valuable

attribute that may be lacking in company executives.

Board advisors can help companies by providing

feedback, opinions, and ideas from the companys target

audience; this makes their input truly valuable.

Since an advisory board is an unofficial committee

comprised of volunteers, what benefits can be enjoyed by

its members? While its true that board advisors usuallyget little monetary compensation for their services, if they

do get any at all, the true value of being in such a group

comes from the experiences and insights that can be

gained from company discussions. Being on advisory

boards can also help expand ones network of contacts, which is often a truly

valuable resource in business.


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Things To Consider Before Hiring Your Board Of

Directors

If you are the founder or CEO of a small company and you are planning on

expanding your business in the future, you might find at some point that you

need to create and select individuals for your own companys board. While some

people might think that hiring more executives for a budding business is

unnecessary and costly, this is only true if you hire less than qualified managers to

fill in executive positions. However, if your board of directors is made up of the

most talented people in the business, then youll find that your efforts andexpenses for creating your own companys board are more than worth it.

Before you proceed with hiring people for your board, try to figure out first why

you need one. Hiring people with expertise in other fields will definitely be a great

help when it comes to making company decisions, since different perspectives

can help shape decisions. However, in what fields do you need the most

assistance?

Think about your own skill sets and try to decide in

which areas you are weakest. For example, if you are

not so well-versed in finance, then maybe hiring a CFO

(chief financial officer) can help balance things in that

field. Board of directors commonly include experts in

other disciplines like a marketing specialist, legal

experts, and human resources. You can also add other

members, but try to think of those areas of expertise where you need the most

help.


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Once you have determined what board positions you need to fill, its time to put

down in writing a clear definition for the role. Its best to be thorough when hiring

for such a high-ranking position as your future hire can have a great impact on the

companys future. Of course, writing down the job description should be followed

by a well-defined list of expectations for the role. This exercise is helpful for both

you and aspiring applicants since creating clear descriptions for the job and your

expectations can lessen disappointments and arguments down the road.

When its time for you to release your advertisements to the job -seeking public,

try to consider different avenues for hiring. One of the fastest ways is by posting

the job opening on online forums and job boards. However, this can yield large

numbers of low quality applicants since such boards usually are more lenient

when it comes to screening. On the other hand, if you want fast results that yield

more high-quality nominees for yourboard of directors, then its best to consult

with board search firms that specialise in hiring senior managers for companies.

Such services can give you great results in no time, saving your company time and

money while keeping your search stress-free.

Documents

Getting The Perfect CEO Mentor For Your Company