Work friends are said to be key to mental well-being at the office-but having one isn't always an option for CEOs. Chief executives need to look elsewhere for people who a) understand the job and b) can provide safe havens for vulnerable conversations.

Matt Navarro, CEO of Stanley 1913, has collected those people in what he calls a personal board of advisers, he told me recently. The practice is hardly limited to CEOs, but a few leaders who have stopped by the WSJ Leadership Institute have mentioned personal boards as a source of support. That is, they regularly talk to a loose group of former colleagues, friends and, in some cases, role models from their childhood or college years, about the challenges they are facing.

I asked Navarro to tell me about how his "board" assists as he leads the 113-year-old company that went super viral during the pandemic, when he led global sales, and is now looking to diversify and expand in a sustainable way. (Navarro stepped into the CEO role in 2024.)

He said that three of the behind-the-scenes folks unofficially supporting him are CEOs, while "an ex-boss or two," rounds out the gang. "They're all at different phases of their career. One's an owner-founder CEO. One's been in his role for 15 to 20 years with a very large golf manufacturer, and one's more my age, 50, who's been in two or three different transformational CEO roles. And so all of them bring really unique experiences."

"If I have something that I'm, like, wrestling or struggling with, I will call one of them or several of them and just get additional points of view," he added. The board never meets as a group-and only a few of the members know each other.

In recent months, Navarro has tapped the advisers to talk about the economy, tariffs, pricing and supply-chain issues. They have chatted about how to spread one consistent message across an organization: share fewer messages, but share them often.

His advisers were particularly helpful when Navarro was first appointed CEO. They answered questions like, "What should I expect? What are the watch-outs?" They warned that the circle of people "who you can trust implicitly" will get smaller, he recalled.

Two topics have dominated his check-ins: leadership teams-specifically how to structure them-and corporate culture. On the first, the most consistent advice Navarro has received is to make sure your leadership team fills out your weaknesses. And while the men and women he calls on all have different takes on culture, the CEO said, "I think they all care about it. They all spend time against it, they all listen to people, they all try to be accessible. They obviously all believe that if people are feeling great about coming to work and operating at a really high level, then the company is going to be successful."

The Journal previously ran a Personal Board of Directors series asking prominent business leaders like Oscar Munoz and Carla Harris about mentors who remained influences throughout their careers. Like them, Navarro has found that his board of advisers is just as wise on nonwork topics-like parenting.

"These conversations consistently help," he told me, "by either validating a decision I'm leaning toward or giving me a completely fresh perspective."

Lila MacLellan Editor, CEO Brief

Keep reading: CEO Loneliness is More Complicated Than You Think

Three Stories Every CEO Should Read

Big Food Is Fighting to Tempt Taste Buds in the Era of Weight-Loss Drugs

Inside Big Tech's Frantic Race to Quell the Growing Backlash to AI

The Cast-Iron Company That Has Been Controlled by the Same Family for 130 Years

Number of the Day

OpenAI's revenue in the second quarter. The company told investors that revenue grew 18% over the first quarter. Meanwhile, Anthropic more than doubled its revenue to $11.6 billion in the same period.

About Us

CEO Brief is written and edited by a team from The WSJ Leadership Institute: Alan Murray, president; Erle Norton, C-Suite Content managing editor; and Lila MacLellan, CEO Brief editor.

The Leadership Institute aims to redefine executive leadership development and peer networking by leveraging the unparalleled trust and insights of Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal to create exclusive, transformative experiences for industry leaders that help them navigate the ever-changing landscape. To learn more, read on here.

Forwarded this email by a friend? Sign Up Here >