Leading With Humanity: The Role of Individual Board Directors in Stewarding a Human-Centric Organizational Culture

Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Organization Development & Change (D.O.D.C.)

Department

Organization Development

First Advisor

Jeanelle Sears (Committee Chair)

Second Advisor

Michael Zickar (Committee Member)

Third Advisor

Steven Cady (Committee Member)

Fourth Advisor

Rachel Vannatta (Other)

Abstract

Across North America, employee disengagement and workplace toxicity have increased significantly, yet individual board directors, whose governance decisions shape organizational culture, remain among the least studied actors in governance research. Although an extensive body of research has examined board structure, composition, and collective processes, the micro-level personality dimensions of individual directors and their relationship to human-centric cultural stewardship represent a critical and largely unexplored gap. This qualitative study employed directed content analysis informed by abductive reasoning to examine the personality traits, attribution styles, behavioral orientations, and character dimensions required for board directors to steward human-centric organizational cultures. Drawing on 31 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with experienced board directors from for-profit, nonprofit, and public sector organizations across Canada and the United States, the analysis was guided primarily by upper echelons theory, with additional grounding in stewardship, agency, and stakeholder theories. The study developed a proposed taxonomy of board director personality dimensions, including benevolent traits such as humanism, faith in humanity, internal locus of control, and other-orientation, as well as eight character dimensions that are essential for effective human-centric cultural stewardship. In contrast, two malevolent traits, subclinical narcissism and self-orientation, emerged as potential risks to human-centric governance. Overall, the findings suggest that an individual director’s capacity to steward a human-centric culture is shaped by the personality dimensions they bring to the board, especially their sense of responsibility for the well-being of employees and all those whose working lives are embedded in that culture.

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