Rising With the Occasion

As an upstate New Yorker who has lived in Virginia for the past three decades, I find Civil War history and Abraham Lincoln fascinating. Our 16th president may be best known for the Gettysburg Address honoring the past, but his leadership qualities were most evident when he faced the future. After issuing the historic Emancipation Proclamation to end slavery, Lincoln did not rest on his laurels, but challenged a still-warring nation to think and act in new ways: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present,” he said in his second State of the Union address. “The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.”

These are the perfect words to frame this first-quarter issue of Directorship—and the upcoming year for NACD itself. This issue of the magazine provides a kit of useful answers to ever-urgent questions by addressing key risks of the coming years, ranging from the ethical pitfalls of artificial intelligence, to changing economic headwinds, to the challenges of the employee experience, to more uncertain trends ahead—and there will be many.

This is why in 2022 NACD will convene the Future of the American Boardroom Commission comprising distinguished corporate governance stakeholders to ask—and answer—the to-be-or-not-to-be questions: Why are we here? What practices are we following that we should drop? What issues should we be addressing that are not currently on our agendas? Directors, corporate leaders, investors, and others will take a hard look to prepare the broader business community for what’s next. Old paradigms will not suffice; radically new, blank-slate thinking will be required.

As we directors face this tempestuous and difficult environment, we need more than ever to frame and understand our problems in unprecedented ways and to forge untrodden paths. This is our job. To quote Honest Abe again, from the same speech, “We—even we here—hold the power and bear the responsibility.”

As CEO of NACD, I take that admission seriously. We must, and shall, rise with the occasion before us, considering all its risks and embracing all its opportunities. Let this new issue of Directorship help guide the way. ■

This article is from the Winter 2022 issue of Directorship.