As I listened to the exceptional thought leaders and directors who shared compelling perspectives on modern board governance challenges at the 2025 Private Company Governance Summit, held in Washington, D.C., May 14-16, I was struck by a consistent theme that emerged: the critical importance of directors’ soft skills for creating high-performing boards.
Several speakers highlighted how these interpersonal capabilities frequently determine the difference between successful succession planning and initiatives that fail to deliver expected results. The quality of board dynamics, decision-making processes and strategic discussions all hinge on the emotional intelligence, communication skills and collaborative abilities of individual directors.
Yet despite recognizing this importance, several panel participants noted they lacked reliable methods to assess these crucial soft skills during board recruitment. This gap between understanding what matters and having practical tools to evaluate it is a challenge worth addressing.
A High-Stakes Challenge
The scenario plays out in boardrooms across the country: recruiting for board roles or executive positions represents one of the most consequential decisions directors make, yet it remains fraught with uncertainty. You’ve invested significant time and resources in identifying candidates with the right background, technical expertise and cultural alignment. But, when faced with multiple qualified finalists, how do you make the final selection with confidence?
Board members and executives recognize the critical impact of leadership style on performance both in the C-suite and the boardroom. As boardrooms prioritize talent strategy, identifying and selecting the right executives has become a central concern. Directors recognize the significant impact of soft skills, particularly during times that require transformation, succession or cultural change. The ability to communicate effectively with a variety of stakeholders, manage conflict and build consensus as well as to steadily maintain critical thinking are just a few of the soft skills necessary to navigate the choppy waters that organizations sometimes face.
Although directors appreciate the crucial impact of soft skills, they inadvertently undermine their selection process by relying on two fundamentally flawed strategies for identifying which leaders are strongest in these capacities — intuition and so-called “science.”
Trusting Your Gut
The first strategy involves trusting collective gut instinct — that intuitive sense that “this person feels right.” While executive intuition has value in certain contexts, it introduces unconscious bias and can lead to overconfidence when making high-stakes personnel decisions. It is so easy to gravitate toward candidates who mirror our own backgrounds, communication styles or professional experiences.
In addition, although the process often includes dinners and meetings with different stakeholders, candidates are usually on their best behavior to create a positive first impression.
But the risks of relying on immediate rapport include:
- Overlooking diverse perspectives that could strengthen board performance.
- Reinforcing cultural blind spots that hide organizational opportunities and risks.
- Missing red flags and weaknesses that only emerge during times of stress or overconfidence.
The Scientific Approach
The second approach can be equally dangerous, perhaps more so because it has the illusion of objectivity — adopting assessment instruments without understanding their limitations or validity. The business environment is inundated with tools promising to unlock the secrets of executive effectiveness. Numerous approaches appear rigorous and data-driven, providing boards with colorful charts, numerical scores and professional-looking documentation. However, this surface-level sophistication masks significant risks.
- Pseudoscience. Many popular assessment tools lack robust validation research or demonstrate weak correlations with actual leadership performance. Others rely on outdated psychological theories or typologies that oversimplify human complexity. It takes years to design and reliably verify such measures. Without such an undertaking, these “tests” and questionnaires are more like horoscopes.
- The certification trap. Assessment companies often offer brief workshops that enable individuals to administer their personality instruments. Even when using validated instruments, interpretation requires a sophisticated understanding of psychological principles, organizational dynamics and contextual factors that brief certification programs cannot adequately address.
- The illusion of knowledge. Pseudoscience and the certification trap lead to the illusion of knowledge, or having just enough information to be dangerous. Anyone can learn to use a saw, but building a quality bookcase requires craftsmanship, experience, and a deep understanding of materials and design principles.
I often compare this to my own attempts at website design. Can I create a functional website using available tools and templates? Certainly. Will it achieve the sophisticated functionality, user experience and strategic objectives that a professional designer would deliver? Absolutely not.
The same principle applies to executive assessment. The tools are accessible, but their effective application requires specialized knowledge and experience that extends far beyond basic certification.
A Framework for Evidence-Based Selection
Whether for the C-suite or the board, effective executive recruitment requires a psychologically informed, data-driven approach grounded in validated research on leadership effectiveness and derailment. However, success depends not on any single tool, but on the sophisticated integration of multiple data sources within the appropriate organizational context. One such approach is the practical application of the C2 Factor (the alchemy of curiosity and courage) using a structured methodology. The stages include:
- Inquiry. Gathering comprehensive data through validated instruments, structured interviews, reference checks and contextual analysis, including matching those soft skills to the organizational stage of development.
- Insight. Analyzing individual capabilities within organizational dynamics, integrating data from multiple sources, identifying strengths, development areas, and derailment risks and assessing cultural fit.
- Action. Translating insights into clear recommendations based on evidence and analysis that support confident decision-making.
The Transformational Opportunity
This process isn’t easy, but when boards embrace sophisticated, evidence-based selection processes, they transform not only their selection outcomes but their entire approach to talent strategy. Directors must remain curious about evolving best practices while having the courage to challenge conventional approaches that may feel comfortable but lack empirical support.
Proper assessment of soft skills pays dividends through measurable improvements in board effectiveness and organizational outcomes. By investing in sophisticated, evidence-based methodologies, boards can reduce inherent risks and enhance decision confidence.
The result is stronger organizations, more effective leaders and sustained performance that benefits all stakeholders.