If you’ve built your business to the point where it has an eight-figure annual revenue, I’m willing to bet you’re self-motivated and have an independent mind.

You’ve achieved success because you know how to lead your team, and you enjoy the responsibility of running things yourself. You hold everyone who works for you to a high standard, and you don’t need a board to do the same to you.

Thanks to the experiences I’ve had so far in my own career, I can understand where you’re coming from if this is how the thought of an advisory board makes you feel. I wouldn’t want one either if that’s how advisory boards really worked.

Luckily, that isn’t how they work, and you don’t need to worry about being called in front of your board to explain yourself.

There are differences between an advisory board and a traditional board of directors. I’m not going to go over all them here, but there’s one aspect that could do with a closer look.

A board of directors can hold your feet to the fire. After all, that’s a large part of what it’s there for. Directors have legal obligations to oversee the governance of the business, and, if they feel the leader isn’t giving the standard of leadership he should be, the board can and will order a meeting to discuss whatever they have a problem with, which may include the CEO’s performance as well.

Directors have responsibilities and obligations invested in them by the law. If they don’t agree with you, the law gives them authority to vote for change and you are at risk if you continue to go your own way.

They also have responsibilities to shareholders. If they decide that your strategy isn’t maximising the return that the shareholders are getting on their investment, they can apply a lot of pressure on you to change it.

What’s best for you isn’t necessarily what’s best for the company’s long-term growth as viewed by directors.

If a board of directors wants to start roasting your feet, it can. It’s not going to do that for the fun of it — if the board starts imposing its authority on you, it generally has a good reason — but, whatever its motives, the end result is the board telling you to run your business in a way that you don’t agree is ideal.

Many business owners avoid having a board of directors simply because they don’t want to be held accountable by one. This isn’t surprising if you understand the characteristics that make a successful business owner.

Business owners are interesting people, and psychologists have studied them for years. It’s easy to see why. In a world where most people are content to get a job, follow instructions from their line manager and pursue a conventional career, what makes some take a different path?

Psychologists have identified several characteristics that motivate someone to strike out on their own and build a successful company, but three of them are particularly relevant here. Put together, they explain why many entrepreneurs are reluctant to work with a board if they can avoid it.

Business owners and entrepreneurs tend to have what psychologists call an “internal locus of control.” Many people are quite apathetic; they see themselves as bobbing around, more or less helplessly, on the oceans of life. They react to what happens in their environment, which they see as pretty much beyond their control.

Business owners are different. They believe that their environment — in this case their business — is controlled by their actions. They don’t view success or failure as being down to luck; instead, they see them as being decided by their own ability and experience.

From this perspective, handing over some control to a board is unattractive. If success depends on your own decisions, anything that restricts the decisions you can take risks your future success.

Successful business owners also have a tolerance of ambiguity and uncertainty. They’re comfortable making decisions on incomplete information. The cautious, managerial approach of a board of directors clashes with this.

Boards like to get regular, comprehensive reports, and prefer to make decisions after carefully analysing complete data. Usually they’ll expect you to provide the data, then wait while they study it, have a discussion, then come to consensus on whether to proceed or not.

To a business owner, this approach is highly limiting and means fleeting opportunities can’t be taken.

Finally, business owners are willing to take calculated risks. They’re not reckless, but they are willing to tolerate a degree of risk when it comes to strategic decisions. Most business owners probably agree with the old saying, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” If you’re not willing to take a few chances in life, you probably aren’t going to achieve anything spectacular.

A board of directors is much more risk-averse than the owners of an innovative, growing business. The directors’ responsibilities make them unwilling to move until they know where they’re going to end up. Again, business owners can find this cautious approach very limiting.

That gives us quite a good portrait of the typical successful business leader — someone who’s self-motivated, values independence and freedom to act, and prefers calculated risk to excessive caution.

They work hard and expect their team to do likewise. They set high standards and lead by example. And they don’t like to be accountable to anyone except themselves.

If you have a board of directors you’re accountable to the board. There’s no way around that; it’s the law.

If the board wants a report on what you’re doing, you have to supply a report. If they have concerns about your strategy, you’re going to have to take their concerns into consideration, and it’s pretty likely you’re going to have to make at least some changes to get them to buy in.

For many business owners, that’s not why they set out to build their own business. They don’t want to be accountable to the board; they’d rather retain their independence. That might mean foregoing the opportunity to make the company public, but if they can stay as master of their own ship that’s a price worth paying.

Unfortunately, many business owners think, because you don’t know what you don’t know, it’s the same situation with advisory boards, and it often puts them off from establishing and working with one. After all it’s a board; it might have a different name and be easier to set up, but it’s still going to be able to hold you to account, isn’t it?

No, it’s not. That isn’t what an advisory board is there for. It can make suggestions, and if you ask a question, you’ll get an answer, but it isn’t going to call you in and replace you. That is not its purpose, nor does it have the authority.

An advisory board is a flexible tool. As well as being able to adjust its membership to suit the challenges you’re currently facing, you can also decide what to involve the board in and what you’d like to handle yourself.