I have a board and I’m on two boards right now, and I’ve served on many more in the past decade. This was a tough week in a few ways, and it leaves me thinking about how to handle diversity as a Director. Specifically, how should you react when the going get tough?

I think that there are two key things to do:

1) Be supportive. CEOs are motivated people who are used to succeeding and have a huge incentive to do so. When things are bad, they know they’re bad. Pointing out that they’re bad, asking for definition of exactly how bad they are, itemizing the terrible downstream ramifications, or reminding the CEO how prescient you when you said this was going to happen are not helpful. The CEO is under tremendous pressure –  in addition to fixing the problem, they have to appear unflappable and in control for their staff, investors, customers, prospects, and everyone else they deal with. Your goal should be to reduce that burden, not add to it. You can talk about how to do things better later.

2) Help. The CEO has to solve the problem, and if you have anything to contribute, it’s time to offer it. (If you don’t have anything to offer, you might want to consider replacing yourself on the board with someone who does.) Have a forward-looking problem-solving conversation. Recommend an approach. Pull out your rolodex. Or your checkbook.  At a minimum offer an “oh, that sucks.”

Or, fire the CEO.

Most directors do little to enable great CEO performance. It’s not about hand-holding – those problem-solving conversations can be hard-hitting – but it is about understanding. The way the Directors reacted to a key challenge facing one of the companies I’m involved in was very revealing. The most successful, and most experienced, directors reached out to the CEO quickly, and in exactly the manner I suggest. Because it works.

My buddy Bryan Eisenberg (Professional Speaker, Best Selling Author, Online Marketing Authority) posted about Facebook credits and quoted me (scary).