HBR's 10 Must Reads on Boards

Keep shareholders happy and manage for the long term.

Earning a board seat is a rite of passage. But directors must juggle many responsibilities, from steering company strategy, managing risk, and appointing leaders to setting the right incentives, meeting shareholder expectations, and dealing with activist investors. How do you balance it all?

If you read nothing else on boards, read these 10 articles by experts in the field. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you set your board up for success.

This book will inspire you to:

• Ensure you have directors who can meet company goals
• Establish a robust succession-planning process
• Encourage the risk-taking that will generate breakthrough innovation
• Prioritize the health of the enterprise without neglecting shareholders
• Provide the critical support a new CEO needs to succeed
• Ignite nonprofit board members by engaging them in work that matters
• Take on the world's toughest economic, social, and environmental problems