Managing Difficult Directors

It happens in every boardroom. Hours into a marathon meeting, the conversation on the critical strategy topics has not yet started, and that one director won’t stop circling around a minor issue no one else finds relevant. As discussions continue, the same director pushes back on every idea. Momentum stalls, focus blurs, energy dissipates, and frustration mounts. Good governance becomes harder than it needs to be.

We recently conducted a multiyear research program on how boards work. We interviewed more than 120 board chairs and directors at companies that range in size from about 1,200 to more than 400,000 employees and from about $300 million in revenue to more than $100 billion. Located in Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the companies operate in a broad array of industries, including services, manufacturing and engineering, and technology. The interviews provided us with many candid accounts of how a single director can make effective board work feel almost impossible. Because boards operate behind closed doors, these issues are rarely discussed openly, and in fact many directors requested confidentiality before talking about them with us. But they are far from rare, and resolving them often requires deliberate intervention.

In this article we draw on our research to describe the characteristics of the most common types of difficult board members. Then we outline a practical framework to help chairs and directors spot early-warning signs, redirect unproductive behaviors, and restore a healthy board dynamic. Finally, we examine what happens when the chair is the problem and describe how the board can respond to protect its processes and its ability to make sound decisions.

Difficult Types

We’ve identified three main types of difficult board members: passive passengers (who stay silent and hope to go unnoticed), dominators (who take control of every discussion), and misguided experts (who focus too much on details). Although they behave differently, they create the same issues: Decisions slow, dynamics are strained, and trust erodes. All three types can make it hard for boards to stay anchored on their true mandates: serving as stewards for management and guiding companies’ long-term direction. Let’s look at each type briefly.

Passive passengers. These directors are often the quietest people in the boardroom. Initially they may seem courteous, thoughtful, and respectful of others’ views. But their silence and passivity often reflect an unwillingness to contest others, even in their own areas of expertise—even though they were appointed precisely for the expertise they could bring to those debates.

In one European board we worked with, a member recruited for deep sector knowledge rarely spoke during strategy discussions in his domain. Reluctant to challenge a forceful CEO, he offered input only when explicitly invited by the chair. In such cases, it’s very hard to know whether the board member is quietly reflective or simply disengaged—and in the end it doesn’t really matter, because that person’s voice is not being heard. “You don’t want to penalize introverts,” one director we spoke to said, “but there’s a point where silence becomes a liability.”

Some directors become passive when their expertise is highly specialized, which nowadays is a frequent pattern, given the increasing number of subject-matter experts in areas such as AI, cybersecurity, and sustainability. It is not surprising that those directors may feel less comfortable contributing outside their domain unless explicitly invited to do so. Effective boards depend on active curiosity and everyone’s willingness to ask questions, test assumptions, and refine understanding. When that disappears, the board’s collective judgment suffers. Through their inactivity, passive passengers can dull debate and diminish expectations of what a board can do, which in turn can signal to management that the board’s work is a formality rather than a strategic force. (However, when a director is the only one with a certain demographic background, hesitation to speak up may reflect structural dynamics, such as power norms or group behavior, rather than personal passivity. Because this dynamic arises from the environment around the director, not from the director’s behavior, it falls outside the pattern we describe here.)

Dominators. These directors command the room, and not in a constructive way. Confident and vocal, they jump into every discussion, interrupt others, and treat the board table as a platform for their opinions rather than shared judgment. What may start as genuine enthusiasm or expertise turns into trouble: Dominators have a tendency to lecture and dismiss other views or steer the conversation toward their own agenda and preferred options. Intentionally or not, they silence quieter voices and erode the diversity of perspective that makes boards effective.

On one U.S. manufacturing board, a recently retired Fortune 500 CEO fell into this pattern. In meeting after meeting he offered long explanations of how he would run the business, reaching deep into operational detail and leaving little room for fellow directors to speak. Attempts by others to contribute were often waved off or contradicted. Over time the sitting CEO began approaching the chair in frustration, feeling second-guessed and unable to engage in candid, productive dialogue.

Dominators are often experienced, successful leaders who have not yet adjusted to the collective nature of board work. They can be alpha personalities, accustomed to driving results and less practiced at listening, and they like to decide rather than deliberate. As one chair said to us, “Many of these people have led entire organizations, and when they step into a board seat, the power dynamic flips: They advise but do not decide. Not everyone makes that shift easily.”

Unchecked dominators can shape the entire tone of the board. Some directors refrain from speaking their mind or rush through agenda items to avoid confrontation, while chairs shift into defensive mode and manage the meeting to contain discussion rather than to elevate it.

Misguided experts. These directors enter the boardroom with extensive experience. They want to contribute meaningfully, but their overly narrow focus unintentionally diverts the board from what matters most. Instead of moving the conversation forward, they bog it down in technical detail or theory, slowing progress and distracting from priorities. They make valid points but don’t necessarily align those points with the board’s purpose, which means their valuable expertise becomes a source of friction instead of insight.

For example, a legal specialist on the board of a European manufacturing company was exceptionally diligent and always fully prepared, but he repeatedly steered discussions toward legal risks, regardless of the topic. What the board needed was strategic balance, but what it got was prolonged debate on legal contingencies. And consider the actions of an HR expert on a U.S. services board, who frequently contacted the CHRO between meetings to offer guidance on staffing decisions. This effort blurred governance boundaries and constrained the executive’s autonomy.

Focus is the biggest problem for misguided experts. They mean well, yet they often compel the board to spend more time than it should thinking about short-term operational details and less time on long-term priorities such as strategy, market positioning, value creation, and succession.

From Awareness to Action

Of course boards try to prevent these issues long before a director ever takes a seat. Chairs told us that screening for behavioral fit is challenging because interviews for board roles are brief, candidates are highly accomplished, someone on the board often knows them, and nearly anyone can project composure in a single meeting. Still, experienced chairs use techniques to get below the surface. Peter Voser, the chair of ABB, a global technology company, described conducting multiple interviews with the same candidate and asking variations of the same question to test for consistency. A candidate may be able to maintain a polished facade in a single meeting, but not across repeated interactions. “You can fake it once,” he said, “but not several times.”

Other chairs have several board members interview the candidate separately and then compare notes for alignment on listening skills, humility, and openness. But leaders emphasized that no screening process is foolproof; difficult behaviors often surface only in the lived dynamics of the boardroom. That’s why boards need to be attentive to early signs of troublesome behavior.

Diagnosing difficult behavior in directors begins with disciplined observation. Effective boards look for patterns, and they assess them through three simple but powerful lenses: engagement (Do directors come prepared, show curiosity, and lean into the conversation rather than hovering at its edges?), interaction (Do they listen, build, and challenge constructively, or do they derail, interrupt, or retreat into silence?), and impact (Does their participation strengthen debate, sharpen judgment, and help the board reach sound decisions, or does it slow progress and dilute focus?). The aim is not to police personalities but to read behaviors clearly, distinguish the occasional misstep from a persistent trait, and intervene early—long before unproductive habits begin to shape the culture of the boardroom.

Recognizing difficult behaviors is the starting point. What happens next determines whether a board regains its balance or slides into disarray. To deal with difficult directors, boards need to collaborate on the following actions:

Set clear expectations. Boards function best when expectations about behavior are explicit rather than assumed. Directors arrive with strong personal habits and beliefs, shaped by careers in different industries and cultures. Senior directors in particular are used to getting things done their own way. As a result, they often hold very different views on how discussions should unfold, how to challenge constructively, and what “good preparation” looks like. Directors need a common framework for disciplined dialogue and clear, agreed-upon standards for behavior.

A good example comes from Debbie Hewitt, the chair of the Football Association (the governing body for the sport in England) and an experienced chair at Visa Europe and BGL Group. In her work as a chair Hewitt always takes time to discuss her expectations—on preparation, participation in meetings, being open to different perspectives, admitting failure, and director development. Setting the tone like that is especially important for boards that are navigating public scrutiny and cultural change.

Many of the more effective boards we studied do something similar, even if not so explicitly. They embed behavioral norms into the board charter, use onboarding sessions to discuss “how this board works,” and periodically revisit the norms during scheduled governance or strategy sessions. Some boards go further and codify small but meaningful rules, such as avoiding side conversations, rotating who speaks first, asking clarifying questions before giving opinions, or committing to one strategic question per agenda item. None of this is rocket science, but it does ensure that meetings begin from a shared understanding and sends a powerful message to management: This board takes its work seriously and behaves accordingly.

Give feedback early and directly. When difficult behavior goes unaddressed, it tends to get worse. Early intervention is key, which is why it’s essential to identify warning signs before a pattern becomes part of the board’s culture.

Giving feedback is one of the most delicate aspects of board leadership, however. Clear, direct feedback grounded in observable behavior rather than personal judgment helps directors recalibrate without feeling attacked.

The first conversation should almost always be private. The board chair should start with questions before offering guidance, asking “Did you notice tension in that discussion?” or “How did the flow of the meeting feel to you?” This approach invites reflection rather than defensiveness. If the behavior doesn’t improve, the conversation should expand to include the lead independent director—and if necessary, the full board. Opening up a conversation to the full board requires special tact and preparation, however, or the difficult board member will lose face. It’s not a move to make impulsively.

Well-governed boards in companies such as Target, Novartis, and ABB integrate feedback into their regular working rhythm. Receiving feedback is simply part of their culture and is not perceived as a corrective action. One global consumer firm reserves five minutes of every executive session for reflection on the discussion quality: What worked? What slowed us down? Whom haven’t we heard from? Another board conducts annual peer feedback that includes two short questions: What should this director continue doing? What should this director do differently? Asking those simple questions on a regular basis makes feedback less threatening and facilitates honest conversations.

We’ve also encountered cases where external coaching proved transformative. A director who regularly dominated discussions at a Scandinavian industrial firm worked with a coach who helped him understand how his contributions were perceived. Within months his colleagues noticed a dramatic shift: He spoke less frequently but with greater impact, and the tone of board meetings improved noticeably.

To summarize, feedback is most effective when delivered early, respectfully, and with clear intent. That helps improve the board’s work, doesn’t come across as individually punitive, and prompts directors to adjust before their behavior becomes disruptive.

Use structural and procedural levers. Not all difficult behavior stems from personality. In many of the boards we studied, structural issues, such as unclear committee roles, poorly sequenced agendas, or too little time allocated to strategy, created or amplified behavioral challenges. Just as culpable were procedural levers, the regular meeting practices that shape how directors interact: speaking order, time management, and how discussions are opened, closed, or redirected.

When structural and procedural elements are poorly designed, even well-intentioned directors can fall into unproductive patterns. When those elements are set up thoughtfully, they nudge the board toward balanced, constructive, and strategic dialogue.

Board chairs, therefore, must create structures and procedures that steer behavior in the right direction. ABB’s Voser has designed his committee structure and task assignments with the explicit goal of ensuring that all board members can make strong contributions and have their voices heard. For example, the board’s governance and nomination committee is charged with overseeing corporate social responsibility (which includes health, safety, environment, and sustainability), even though ultimate accountability for ABB’s sustainability strategy rests with the full board. Having dedicated committees helps Voser channel expertise to the right forums and prevents individual directors from reshaping the full board agenda. Voser has also stated publicly that he avoids having “hyperactive” directors who dominate discussions and undermine ABB’s commitment to balanced and transparent deliberation. This combination has created natural opportunities for quieter members to contribute and prevented a handful of strong personalities from dominating conversations. Additionally, Voser has designed the process so that all decisions are made during board meetings, not deferred or resolved informally outside the boardroom, which helps to keep the discussion transparent and inclusive.

Boards can use several procedural levers to encourage constructive behavior. They can focus on speaking order, deliberately rotating who opens each discussion. They can adopt timeboxing, allocating clear time segments to different directors, which keeps discussions focused and ensures balanced participation. They can create parking lots, capturing off-topic issues on a whiteboard, for example, so that ideas are acknowledged and can be revisited but don’t derail the agenda in the moment. They can set up structured rounds for conversation, giving each director a turn to weigh in, particularly on major strategic items. They can provide prereading with prompts, encouraging board members to prepare using materials that include targeted questions. They can use AI to track and analyze who’s speaking in meetings and suggest adjustments (as noted in “How Pioneering Boards Are Using AI,” HBR, July–August 2025). They can even bring in external facilitation, which can be helpful for resetting dynamics, especially during strategic retreats or periods of tension.

Escalate when necessary. If a board member persists in disruptive behavior despite repeated efforts to address it, escalation becomes a matter of good governance, not preference. The process must be clear and fair. It should be overseen by the nominating and governance committee, working closely with the chair and the lead independent director. Chairs should begin by documenting issues and feedback conversations, and if concerns continue, the nominating and governance committee should give formal feedback with explicit expectations, a timeline for improvement, and planned follow-up. In some cases boards can restructure committees to reduce friction or use external evaluations to encourage voluntary departure. That last option is not always possible. As one chair told us, “Board members are often at the end of their career. If you ask them to leave the board, they may never get another board position, so they may cling to that job with their life.” If none of those steps has succeeded, then it’s time to consider the worst-case option: removing the board member. But that’s not a step to be taken lightly.

Each director was appointed for a reason, and the aim in addressing problematic behaviors is not punishment but restoration: bringing each director back into alignment with the board’s collective purpose. When boards act early and with fairness, they don’t just prevent disruption. They also strengthen trust, improve decision quality, and model the accountability expected of the organization itself.

Adjustments by Type

Each of the actions we’ve described can and should be adapted to the specific type of difficult director.

Passive passengers often respond best to clear expectations and structured opportunities to contribute. Great chairs know that drawing out these directors is less about prompting them to speak than about creating the conditions that make them want to speak. To that end, chairs signal inclusion well before the meeting starts, flag topics where a director’s expertise will matter, frame questions that play to their strengths, or follow up privately to understand what might be holding them back. With those subtle interventions, and once directors feel their input is both expected and valued, silence typically gives way to substance. Over time steady encouragement builds a culture in which even the most reserved directors will step in naturally and with confidence.

Dominators, for their part, require firm boundaries and consistent enforcement of meeting norms. Great chairs understand that addressing dominance is not about silencing these directors but about channeling their energy in positive directions. They do this by grounding participation in process rather than personality; by setting clear norms that apply to everyone, including themselves; and by modeling the kind of balance they expect from others. Whether by summarizing before responding, limiting the number of interventions, or deliberately opening the floor after a forceful comment, effective chairs create a rhythm that keeps conversation inclusive without curbing the energy.

Finally, misguided experts benefit from targeted feedback and agendas that channel their expertise toward the right strategic priorities. Great chairs do this by asking questions that translate technical depth into strategic insight. “What does this mean for our long-term positioning?” they might ask, or “How might this shape the choices ahead?” By asking these questions, they help experts connect their knowledge to a board’s higher purpose. Over time this tactic reminds misguided experts (and the other directors) that their strength lies not in exhaustively solving every technical point but in focusing on the questions that determine direction. When the chair intervenes early, sensing when detail is beginning to crowd out judgment, the conversation is redirected to the level where the board can add the greatest value.

A Balancing Act

A well-functioning board can often regulate itself, but if emotions start to rise, the chair obviously has a crucial role to play. That role is not to take over the conversation or smooth over conflict. Instead, the chair should work to maintain a disciplined equilibrium in a way that allows disagreement without division, participation without chaos, and expertise without overreach.

This work starts with a simple truth: Chairs are more like conductors than referees. They know that most directors have special talents and want to contribute. They also recognize that directors need to be guided to act in alignment with the board’s collective purpose. Great chairs set the rhythm of discussion, anticipate problems and difficulties, smooth out frictions, and recalibrate tone in ways that maintain alignment. Doing so allows them to handle even the most difficult directors without humiliating them or escalating tensions.

Although chairs play a central role in guiding dynamics, they can’t carry the burden of culture alone. As Rod Adkins, the chair of the board of Avnet, an electronic-components distributor, told us, developing the board is “the responsibility of every director.”

Boards work best when every director pays attention to how the group functions: who speaks, who hesitates, when conversations drift, when the room needs a reset. The chair sets the tone, but how a board behaves collectively is what determines whether it performs or stalls. It’s every director’s job to stop minor tensions from growing into real problems and keep the board grounded. Every director has to show up prepared, contribute with intention, be aware of how their style affects the room, help quieter voices be heard, and lead wandering discussions back to a purpose. Effective boards develop the ability to self-correct.

But what happens when the very person tasked with setting the tone and maintaining alignment—the chair—becomes a problem? It almost always appears in the form of dominator behavior. As authority drifts into control, the chair begins to try to “run” the discussion, or even the company, and the space for other directors narrows quickly. Several directors told us that this dynamic is becoming more common. As boards have elevated the role of the chair—expanding responsibilities, increasing visibility, and in some cases expanding power over CEO evaluations or direction-setting—the risk that a chair will overstep has grown. Although we do not have statistical evidence on the prevalence of this trend, many directors noted that the concentration of authority in the chair’s role can unintentionally invite more-dominant behavior.

Given the chair’s elevated position, addressing this dynamic is uniquely difficult. No single director can intervene effectively, and even collectively the other members of the board don’t have many options available for intervening. The best course of action is for senior directors or committee chairs to engage the chair with a private, candid conversation that frames the issue around the board’s effectiveness rather than the chair’s personality. Early dialogue often helps, but if that doesn’t lead to change, the board may need to coordinate a more structured process through the nomination or governance committee, ensuring that any action is handled with fairness, transparency, and a clear sense of fiduciary duty.

Should the chair resist feedback or continue to undermine trust, the board may need to consider a leadership change. This process is never straightforward and can carry reputational and legal risks. However, experienced directors emphasize the importance of acting decisively once confidence in the chair’s leadership has eroded. “You can’t wait for dysfunction to fix itself,” one director told us. “The longer you avoid it, the harder it becomes to restore trust.”

In these cases professionalism matters as much as principle. The best boards handle such transitions with calm, collective action, giving the chair space either to adapt or to step aside, with dignity preserved on all sides.

. . .

Effective boards neither ignore disruptive behavior nor overreact to it; they act early, rely on clear processes, and use each correction to strengthen trust and discipline. Our research shows that high-performing boards stay aligned by matching sharp awareness with shared accountability, intervening when dialogue weakens, and using clear feedback and structure to recalibrate as needed. Ultimately, strong boards aren’t defined by the absence of difficult personalities but by their ability to turn difference into strength, challenge into clarity, and friction into focus.

Copyright 2026 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate.

Explore AAPL Membership benefits.