New Delhi, July 16 -- For years, the ideal board member in many companies was a well known: visible in annual reports, invisible everywhere else. This director would attend meetings, nod thoughtfully at presentations, approve resolutions with ceremonial dignity and ask an occasional question so harmless that it qualified as ambient noise. Governance often was a polite affair interrupted by audit committees.

Then suddenly boards were expected to understand cyber risk, environmental, social and governance issues, AI, geopolitics, activist investors, whistleblower complaints, supply chain shocks. For once, the ceremonial board was being asked to supervise actual complexity. This terrified directors.

The phrase 'board leadership' still caus...