Villains, gavels, rules, and being delightful.
When I was a kid, I learned from the news and T.V. shows that there were people out there called the “chairman of the board” or, on a rare occasion, “Madame Chairman”. Not sure where to lay the blame, but my understanding was that these people were for the most part greedy villains rubbing their hands with glee while making an excessive profit on the backs of the downtrodden (clearly these were not chairs of community based organizations). It was also the 70’s and I may have had some additional confusion involving Chairman Mao and Mad comics.
Fast forward a few decades or so and I can happily say that most board chairs I work with are delightful people committed to effective governance and to the success of the organization.
The Not-so-delightful and the Bordering on Villainous
None the less, I do get calls for providing governance support after not-so delightful (even at times bordering on villainous) board chairs have left the room (some willingly, some pushed). In each case, there had been a growing unease with the chair’s approach along with confusion or unhelpful assumptions about the role of the chair.
Not surprisingly, each of these boards had neglected the importance of board and chair development and succession planning. The result was, and will be for any board that does not pay attention to these things, a mess of distrust, low engagement, and poor process.
And if that doesn’t scare you enough, please know that this mess spreads from the boardroom throughout the organization undermining attempts to cultivate a culture of psychological safety, staff well-being and engagement, business success, and positive community impact.
Let’s not go there.
Here are three common signs of a not-so-delightful chair. It is never too late to recognize, name, and address these behaviours.
- Wields a gavel like it is the only tool available for defending all that is good in the world*. In other words, they really dig being in charge to the point of taking the energy out of everyone and everything.
- Quotes rule books as a way to maintain authority without respect, generosity, transparency, or accountability.
- Shoves business along regardless of consequences such as board disengagement, broken trust, and the board as a whole not meeting their fiduciary responsibility and duty of care.
The Delightful
Here are a few things that I have observed about delightful board chairs and governance teams.**
- Everyone on the team supports the success of the role of chair.
- Everyone on the team arrives at meetings prepared and ready to participate.
- Everyone on the team understands and supports a transparent and fair process for informed decision making.
- Everyone on the team cultivates a shared commitment to accountability, transparency, fiduciary responsibility, and duty of care resulting in wise agendas, policies, process, and board structures (such as active committees and when appropriate co-chairs).
- Strategic, fiduciary, and generative discussions are skillfully managed and serve the board’s role in oversight, assessment, and guiding the growth of the organization.
- The governance culture is healthy and demonstrates psychological safety.
If you have the delightful, then you will want to keep it by being purposeful with board and chair recruitment and development.
If you want the delightful, then you will need to be purposeful about board and chair recruitment and development.
If you don’t think this is possible, you need to hang out with me more.
Babs
You can find out more about me and why and how I do my work as a coach and facilitator at the Courageous Leaders Project.
*The gavel wielding is more often figurative than literal for many boards. Yet, I did recently hear of one meeting where a gavel went flying during a heated discussion, narrowly missing a large window.
**The organization’s CEO or executive director plays a key role in supporting the board’s work and as such is part of what I call the governance team. Different roles and responsibilities, but one team.
Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash