Two influential organizations—Women Corporate Directors (WCD)-Chicago Chapter and the Women’s Leadership Center at Williams Bay (WLC)—collaborated to produce a groundbreaking new report: Confronting the Elephant in the Board(Room). The report debuted at the WCD Global Institute & Visionary Awards, held in Chicago on October 5–7, 2025, and is available for download here.

Universally, Board leaders often face “elephants in the room”—unspoken dilemmas that an organization or team know exist but are reluctant to confront because they’re charged, personally uncomfortable, or culturally sensitive. Such dilemmas can include issues related to Board or company leadership and succession, culture, strategy, ethics, risk management gaps, compensation and performance, and stakeholder relations. Unnamed, untamed, and unmanaged, these “elephants” can (at the least) hinder an organization from realizing its potential—and (at their worst) destroy it.

The key to addressing these challenges lies in naming and managing the issues in a way that fosters clarity, reduces conflict, and encourages forward movement. It’s a skill set more leaders need as they ascend to the C-suite and to Board director roles and responsibilities.

The Women Corporate Directors (WCD) Chicago Chapter and the Women’s Leadership Center at Williams Bay (WLC)—teamed up to take on the “elephant problem” via an interactive, content-rich workshop that explored the issues Boards most often struggle to discuss, delved into their causes, and identified strategies for confronting them.

To address the “elephant in the room” phenomenon, the Women's Leadership Center hosted a highly curated, content-rich workshop on June 3, 2025 with 25 WCD-Chicago members currently serving on corporate Boards. The event blended structured conversation, personal storytelling, and real-world scenarios—including a realistic pre-read case study with guiding questions—to spark open and candid discussion.

The participating leaders, and the report that followed, helped frame key themes such as:

  • Elephant Species: What types of unspoken issues consistently emerge in Boardrooms? (Seven key types of issues were identified).
  • Elephant Origins: Why are these critical issues often avoided? What are the root causes? (Three key categories of root causes were identified).
  • Elephant Wrangling: How can Boards surface and address sensitive issues productively and what are the best prioritization strategies? (The report outlines several strategic approaches, including prioritization methods aligned to five common issue types.)

The report concludes: “The work starts with Boards of Directors who are willing to ask hard questions, raise concerns, offer solutions, and model the kind of courageous, strategic dialogue they expect from the organizations they govern.”

The full report is available for download here.

The Elephant in the (Board)Room initiative is a powerful example of how small-format, high-trust gatherings can spark meaningful change. This collaboration with WCD-Chicago exemplifies the types of breakthroughs and discoveries we will facilitate cross-collaboratively at the future home of the Women’s Leadership Center at Williams Bay, arriving in 2026.