Much like in parliament, a company need governance to prevent it from falling apart. The board of directors oversee this, and thus, required to assert the corporate governance upon their company.
What is corporate governance?
Corporate governance is a set of rules imposed onto a company to assert control and direct the company to achieve its objectives. The board of directors are responsible for the governance, but to impose a good governance, you need to follow a set of principles.
Deliver growth:
A company need to establish long term strategies and business models to meet the expectations and needs of their future shareholders. You also need to consider possible threats and opportunities and develop a proper risk management system to counter any threats.
Maintain a dynamic management framework:
The chair of the board is responsible for keeping the board balanced and functional. Hence, they need to ensure the board informed for decision-making. This also includes keeping balance between executive and non-executive directors to avoid any workplace bullying.
Build trust:
Stakeholders, shareholders and executives must communicate the effectiveness or weaknesses of the governance to maintain transparency. One moment of silence may jeopardize the whole organisation structure since none dared to voice out their opinions.
Accountability:
When you or any of your board members made a mistake, you need to take accountability. The sooner you realise and be responsible for your mistakes, the sooner and better you can produce a countermeasure of an issue to prevent any sensitive information being leaked to outsiders or rival companies.
Engagement:
The executive committee must be the liaison between the organisation and stakeholders and employees. This is to ensure that the relationships can be maintained, and the organisation will appear to be welcoming for future shareholders.
Why is it important?
If a country leader fails to govern their country, then it will be at the verge of war or destruction. The same can be applied to a company, if the board of directors fails to keep their company in control.
Transparency is a key part of any organisation. A transparent framework ensures that each member of the board of directors and stakeholders can identify their roles and responsibilities in the company. It helps them to be aware of the risks, their rights and rewards they could gain should they decide to invest their time and money on the company.
It is imperative that the board reach an understanding and acceptance of the potential risks that they could face. Once it is unanimous, they can come up with strategies to minimise the upcoming problems.
Now that you have read about the core principles of a good corporate governance, so are you plan to getting one? But for Sdn Bhd, you only need a company secretary.