Shifting Your Seat At The Table

I was sitting around the table with a couple of board members a few days ago. We were chatting about leadership issues from my viewpoint as an executive director – in fact, from my stance as a consultant who deals with executive directors and board members – but at a certain point I realized I’d begun weighing in from my perspective as a board member, in fact as a board chair.

The subject? The age-old “How to get board members to govern from an oversight perspective instead of getting stuck in giving their opinions on the day-to-day?”

Oh, that one.

What was interesting was not the fact that we were having that conversation – who isn’t? – but that we could each speak from our experience as board members and as staff (albeit for different nonprofits).

Each of us knowing what it was like to be a chief staff officer trying to partner with board members, to get them involved in some activities but keep them at bay in others…and knowing at the same time what it was like as a board officer to be working with an executive director whose boundaries were either too porous (asking board members to volunteer at the front desk) or a pure stone wall (distributing financials a half-hour into a board meeting, giving board members no chance for meaningful review).

It really helped to have that dual perspective – it gave me some humility, having struggled on both sides.

My conclusion? That it’s the role, even more than the particular person, that creates the tension. Sure, some people will be obstreperous no matter where they sit, but there are constraints and imperatives from each station that are germane to that outlook.

And that I’d do well to remember this whenever I start to get too pompous about what one ought to do…