The Sponsor

The Board Sponsor relationship mattered because it was supposed to be the place where ambiguity could be resolved early.

The onboarding framework contemplated first-week debriefs and 30, 60 and 90-day milestone reviews.

Its purpose was to make sure there were no surprises.

My concern, as the weeks went on, was that adverse commentary about me may have been moving through that channel without being consistently put back to me in a way I could respond to.

I want to be careful here.

I cannot know every conversation that occurred between staff and Board members.

I cannot know what somebody else believed unless they said it or recorded it.

What I can say is that if staff had genuine concerns about my leadership, I wanted to understand them.

Tell me I am moving too quickly.

Tell me my communication is landing badly.

Tell me a decision has confused people.

Tell me someone thinks I have overstepped.

Then give me the opportunity to explain, adjust or disagree.

That is what probation and onboarding are for.

A probation period should not require a new executive to guess what concerns are accumulating around them.

It should be the safest period for direct feedback because everybody knows the appointment is still settling.

The later significance of this was obvious.

When the termination letter referred to leadership and conduct concerns, I was left asking how those concerns had been assessed, what I had been told and whether the structured onboarding process had actually been used to resolve them before the decision was made.