Addressing ED/BOD chair tensions
Issue #2, January 27, 2025
One of the most challenging roles for a CEO or executive director to address is dealing with a significant challenge to the organization while avoiding micromanagement by a board chair. The dynamic is commonplace. The board chair is worried and wants to help and constructively engage the board. The executive director wants assistance, but on her terms, since the board hired her to execute the nonprofit’s strategy and run its daily operations.
Almost any attempt to intervene in this context is fraught with issues. So what if you could enlist the support of AI? That way, you could note that you're simply sharing information about the way both stakeholders should act. It removes some of the potential tension and permits the two stakeholders to avoid attacking each other while they work out how to proceed.
Here is a series of six prompts that an executive director, a board chair, a board member, or a consultant may use to lay out basic understandings of roles and responsibilities. I have used the example of a budgetary crisis, but you can substitute any challenge.
You can also use the prompts without a specific problem, to help set out the proper terms of engagement of these two vital stakeholders. In other words, you don’t need to be in crisis to receive and act on sound advice about roles. So why don’t you try these prompts today? That way you can deal with the relationship before a significant challenge stresses it.
Acting in the role of an expert in nonprofit governance, describe in detail the differences between the roles of the CEO/ED of a nonprofit and the board chair.
Acting in the same role, describe the appropriate roles of the ED and board chair specifically when a nonprofit faces a budgetary crisis.
Acting as an expert in nonprofit governance, describe in detail what actions by a board chair may reasonably be viewed as micromanaging an executive director.
Acting in the same role, describe in detail actions and behaviors by an executive director that may lead a board chair to believe that they need to get more involved, even if that may be perceived as micromanagement.
In the same role, describe in detail what steps a board chair should take when the nonprofit faces a budgetary crisis to avoid micromanaging the executive director.
Acting in the same role, describe in detail what steps an executive director of a nonprofit facing a budgetary crisis should take to reduce a board chair's perceived need for involvement that might appear to be micromanagement.
Let me know your results—good or bad, useful or useless. I got some fantastic feedback from Issue 1's prompts about how AI can help you understand how it can help. That feedback (anonymized, of course) will be the basis of future newsletters.
As always, if you have a question or problem related to AI, or if there is an issue that you’d like assistance with, please respond to one of these newsletters with that issue. I will keep those issues to myself or anonymize them if I ever refer to them in training or my consulting. While I may not be able to address every request individually,
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