Processes outside and inside the boardroom and actual board behavior in small firms are investigated in this empirical study where one of the authors was a participant observer. A firm’s life cycle approach was used. The study shows that actual board behavior differs with life cycle phase: in the start-up phase, board involvement is in legitimacy tasks; in the growth phase, board’s involvement is in advisory tasks; and in the firm crisis stage, the board’s involvement is in control tasks. We argue, based on the observations, that boards are empowered to these tasks based on different types of trust relationships between internal actors, external actors and the board members.