Most leaders have a board, advisers, a coach perhaps, and a large number of acquaintances. Very few have a place where they can say, without consequence, "I do not know what to do." The peer forum exists for that sentence. Born in the American executive networks of the 1950s and refined since, it has become the core format of the best leaders' organisations. Here is how it works when it works.
A small, stable group
A forum gathers eight to twelve members, chosen so that nobody competes with, reports to or sells to anybody else in the room. The composition is stable for years; trust is built on repetition. Members meet monthly, for three to four hours, with an annual retreat. Attendance is not optional: the group only works if everyone shows up.
Rules before content
The rules are the method. Confidentiality is absolute: what is said in the room stays there, without exception. Speaking is in the first person: members share experience, not advice, so that nobody has to defend a recommendation. Time is shared: each meeting reserves the floor for one or two members who bring a real decision, and the others question before they reflect. A facilitator, or a rotating moderator, protects the rules, not the content.
The Chatham House rule
Formulated in 1927 by the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, the rule is short: participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker may be revealed. It differs from secrecy: ideas circulate, attributions do not. In a forum it removes the reflex of self-protection that makes most leaders' conversations useless, and it allows people who could not otherwise sit together, an elected official and a chief executive for instance, to speak as peers.
What a forum is not
It is not a networking event: nobody is there to be introduced. It is not a mastermind selling a method. It is not therapy, although it often does more good. And it is not a place to do business: the best organisations ban soliciting between members outright, because one commercial approach is enough to end the trust of a whole group.
What members get
Three things, mostly. A decision made better because it was questioned by people with nothing to gain. A calibration: knowing whether the difficulty you face is normal at your level. And, over the years, the rarest asset of a leader's life: a handful of people who know the whole picture and will still tell you the truth.
Forums at the World Leaders Society
The forums of the World Leaders Society, founded in Paris in 2025, follow this method with one difference: the room is cross-sector. Business leaders sit with elected officials, senior public officers and civil-society figures, in groups of eight to twelve, under the Chatham House rule and a members' charter that forbids soliciting. Forums are formed by region, starting with Europe and Africa, and complemented by prestige events and impact initiatives. Membership is open to application, without an age limit, through an independent approval committee.
A forum is the only meeting in a leader's month where the goal is not to be right.WLS Editorial
An editorial analysis from the World Leaders Society.
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