Executives often miss opportunities because they don’t engage with outreach at the right times, for the right reasons. This is true of outreach for executive roles; considerations for board roles are even more nuanced.

When you are a successful executive, your achievements will attract attention. If you’re already a senior leader at a respected company, responsible for growth rates that exceed expectations, or you’re seen as developing other top-tier leaders, you’re desirable to companies that are hiring: everybody wants a high-quality leader with a track record of making a positive impact.

If you find yourself sorting through large numbers of unsolicited queries, your first priority is deciding which are worth pursuing—while you should always be open to opportunities, you don’t have time to be open to every opportunity.

The initial hurdle is making sure you have time to engage without hurting your performance in your day job. If you have a major event coming up that will take a significant amount of your time, wait until it’s behind you. Once you do have time, then, as one colleague put it: “When opportunity knocks, see who’s at the door.”

Invest your time in conversations about companies you admire and respect, companies with significant growth prospects, or roles with enough strategic scope or impact to make a real difference to a company’s performance. Ask enough questions to understand if your experience and aspirations actually line up with the role.

Beyond those considerations, even if you’re pretty sure you don’t want to move, or not 100 percent sure you’re interested, a single call to discuss an opportunity is almost always worth the time if you’ll be learning something new—about a sector, product category, segment, business model, CEO, board member, or investor, for example.

Having conversations about potential roles often enough to stay current is a good way to build your brand and understand your market attractiveness, as well as to improve your network. If you’d be talking about a position you aspire to fill someday, think about taking the call to build your fluency in the language and mindset of a role at a higher level or broader scope. Often that means being able to talk about not just the specifics of a role, but about the company’s strategy and vision, its culture, and how you would anticipate working with the full leadership team and meet the board’s expectations. Being able to talk about these subjects fluently can help people in your network start to see you at a new level.

In other words, the decision to take a call is not binary but dynamic—not just “Do I want this job or not?” but about whether a call offers an opportunity to engage and grow your network, improve your capability to interview, or burnish your personal brand. Like your career path, the value of meeting someone isn’t always linear. It’s important, though, when you accept an introduction to ensure that the person you’re meeting with understands your mindset and shares your expectations for the meeting.

Another category of meeting you may be offered is a strategic introduction. These are less formal than other types of meetings, because they come with fewer expectations. They’re a chance to expand your network, build your brand, and, potentially, see if there’s more to the opportunity than you initially expected.

They are typically facilitated by someone who knows both parties well. For example, a board member you know may introduce you to a CEO, or an investor in your company may introduce you to a board chair at another company. Even when you’re not actively looking, these meetings can offer significant value. At the very least, you get the chance to meet someone influential; we’ve seen strategic introductions lead to a new leadership role (immediately or later), a board seat or role on an advisory board, and even to partnerships between companies or merger and acquisition deals.

Additional considerations about board roles

Many successful executives get approached about joining boards of other organisations, and you may think you ought to join one. Boards can offer opportunities to play a role in leading local organisations you care about, such as a charity in your hometown, a school board, or a hospital or arts institution. Corporate boards may also be an option for you. Either way, joining a board can advance your career, but it can also present risks.

Nonprofit boards, in particular, can yield some general experience in governance and some contacts, but often the benefits are more about contributing to a cause you believe in than about advancing your career. Service on a corporate board can have a material impact on your reputation. Leaving a board early, for example, can do a fair amount of damage to your reputation, especially because board members are typically particularly well connected.

We recommend against taking the decision to join a board lightly. Apply the same level of diligence and thought to this decision as you would to accepting an executive role. The fundamental questions to consider are “What can I contribute?” and “What can I learn?”

Benefits:

• You gain governance experience. If you ever aspire to be a public company CEO or CFO, service on a corporate board will give you good perspective; nonprofit boards can, in many cases, offer an introduction to the distinction between management and oversight that is central to succeeding on a board, but in a very different context.
• You learn how a new team and new board work together in ways that can give you insights into your current organisation.
• Board service will extend your network and give you opportunities to learn from other leaders’ collective experience.
• Often, directors sit on more than one board and have very broad networks. So while interviewing for or joining a board may seem like an opportunity to build connections with one organisation, the reality is that the people you’ll meet could multiply the opportunities you’re exposed to.

Risks:

• Board service can be time-consuming, particularly because unpredictable events such as a merger or acquisition or an activist campaign can take up unexpected time outside of regular meetings. There may be more efficient ways to reach your goals.
• What makes you a good operating executive doesn’t always translate into being an effective board member. For example, you must be willing and able to participate in give and take: if you’re on a board of eleven people, you should be talking one-eleventh of the time. You also have to be mindful of the line between board oversight and management so you don’t overstep and don’t ask the executive team for things that are outside their ability to deliver.
• If you join a board and perform poorly, it will be a lasting setback to your reputation. Performing poorly can include missing meetings, showing up unprepared, and trying to manage the company as an executive would.
• If the organisation is on the decline and continues to perform poorly, it’s a reflection on you that can hurt your prospects.
• If you won’t learn or be able to contribute, it’s definitely not worth taking time away from your operating role or your family.

Kelly O. Kay and Jeff Sanders are partners at executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles. Excerpted with permission from their new book: Show Up To Win: How to Land the Leadership Role You Want (HBR Press, 7 July 2026)