In one of my first board advisory sessions for a mid-sized bank, a veteran director leaned back, chuckled, and said, “We already approved the strategy. Now it’s management’s problem.” It reminded me of a pilot who sets a flight path, locks the cockpit, and walks into the passenger cabin midair. That board was flying blind, and they didn’t even know it.

Most board members think their job is to ask smart questions once a quarter, approve strategy, review risks, and nod at reports. This is a fatal misreading of modern governance. The times we live in today are very dynamic, where cyberattacks occur weekly, if not daily, talent is fluid, and AI is rewriting sectors in real time. The board’s role is not passive oversight. It’s active sense-making.

Consider a real scenario.

A telecommunications company was breached. The board had approved a cybersecurity budget the previous year and believed their duty was done. But there was no board visibility into cyber drills, incident response maturity, or vendor risk exposure. When the breach happened, they learned the hard way: approving a budget is not the same as ensuring readiness.

What every board member should know is this: your power is not in ratifying documents but in framing the right conversations, before it’s too late. You need to bring your strategic mind to operational readiness, not just big-picture approvals. If your CEO is the pilot, you are air traffic control. You must have visibility, coordination, and foresight.