The Keys to Board Leadership

I've run human rights and philanthropic organizations for most of the last forty years. During much of that time I have also been a nonprofit board member. I’ve been a board chair twice – StoryCorps for almost ten years and The New Press at the present time – and have served on more boards than I can remember, from those of global human rights organizations to my local public library. For most of my career, I reported directly to a board, so I have seen a lot from both sides of the board-staff relationship.

Because incoming board chairs — or others in the leadership pipeline, if there is one — get no training, coaching, or onboarding in most places, and because effective boards are a crucial element of high-performing organizations, Raben will soon launch a peer cohort to provide a forum for discussion and sharing about the role of board leadership.

To kick off this line of work, I thought I’d share a few things I’ve come to believe over the years about what makes for effective boards. You will note that many of my observations and recommendations could be characterized as “Goldilocks” approaches, such as engagement is needed – but not over-engagement. It’s always about finding the sweet spot, and much as we may strive to capture best practices in norms and rules, there is always a vital human factor, and the best board chairs have both emotional intelligence and political skills.

Most of the work of boards takes place outside the board meeting – and should.

While regular attendance at scheduled board meetings is very important – for relationship-building, for the richer discussion that comes from interactivity, for continuity – what happens in committees and periodic consultations with staff leadership is where much of the board's work goes on. To cite just a few examples from my prior board service, when I was on the ACLU National Board in the late 80s and 90s, my colleagues and I were the beneficiaries of a highly-engaged Budget/Audit/Investment committee that met for many hours to kick the tires with staff about financial projections. At Human Rights Watch, particularly in the early days, our work was advanced by the hands-on participation of a number of board members – leading lawyers, journalists, and academics – in overseas investigations of human rights abuses. At OutRight, the Ms Foundation, and the Fund for Global Human Rights, among many other places, first-rate staff leadership has emerged from the intensive participation of board members on search committees. And in StoryCorps, our state-of-the-art digital expansion could not have taken place without the advice of board members with strong tech backgrounds.

A significant part of every board agenda should be devoted to substance and strategy.

Many board members lose interest in meetings because the agendas have a “pre-fabricated” feel – a drone of committee and staff reports that repeat much of what is in written materials – that follows a template virtually unchanged over the last 100 years of non-profit experience. As I’ve noted above, a good deal of the important work of the organizations takes place in committees, and they should report. However, the recitations of actions taken and “talking at” time should be kept to a minimum. Whether presentations are generated by committees or key staff leadership, every item should lead to the posing of one or more questions the staff is grappled with, framed in terms of advice or actions that are sought from the other board members. These should focus as much as possible on matters of strategy where board members have an opportunity to weigh in on meaningful policy or strategy questions, even where the ultimate decision is in management’s hands.

Size matters

Though there may be good reasons to expand the size of a board for representation or fundraising, there’s a sweet spot of size – around twenty, in my experience – to aim for. If a board is too large, there is often less of a sense of accountability since each individual member feels less significant to the effort and may believe they won’t be missed if they don’t show up or participate fully. On the other hand, if a board is too small, there aren’t enough people to do the work or enough diversity to provide multiple perspectives and expertise.

Board and staff have separate spheres, and each should respect the other’s.

Board members should respect staff reporting channels and not engage in “ex parte” or intelligence-gathering conversations with staff below the CEO level that can undermine to management. By the same token, except in extraordinary circumstances, which should ideally be provided for in governance policies, staff should not go around the CEO to deal directly with board members. While it’s commonplace to acknowledge that a good CEO “manages” the board, and in a well-functioning organization, the board is largely deferential to the judgments the CEO makes in their sphere of authority, the CEO and senior team must also respect and not seek to manipulate the board’s own decisionmaking processes.·

Fundraising is a core board duty, and every member can do it.

Most contemporary boards have a “give or get requirement” with respect to the financial support of the organization, and they should. But traditionally, more emphasis is placed on the “give” aspect, which tends to lead to boards that are increasingly dominated by people of considerable means. More attention should be paid to the “get” aspect, understanding that all board members, whatever their means, can credibly ask anyone for money at any level, as long as they are giving to the maximum of their own capacity. If $50 is a meaningful gift for a board member of modest means, that member has all the standing they need to ask a millionaire for many multiples of that.

Financial rigor and integrity are key, and a few board members who pay close attention can be proxies for the others.

When institutions encounter financial difficulty in leadership transitions, as they often do, it is almost always a sure sign that trustees have been failing to exercise financial stewardship. Boards, on the whole, need to be better trained in financial literacy, but as a practical matter, they need a competent, highly engaged finance committee on which they can rely. That committee should be asking the hard questions of executive and finance staff, checking revenue estimates and assumptions, and assuring that renewable expenses can be sustained. Staff should welcome that rigor.

Board members should be invested in the organization, but not TOO invested.

Every board needs a critical mass of its members for whom the organization is their principal voluntary activity, and who will devote the time necessary to assuring the health of the institution. An organization whose board lacks stalwart champions will have a hard time achieving and sustaining excellence.

On the other hand, board members who are over-engaged – for whom being on the board is more important to their ego than to the organization’s mission and performance – can often cause problems for staff and other board members, particularly if they are also significant donors whose voice may carry undue weight.

Board members shouldn’t be expected to remember much from one meeting to the next.

Most nonprofit board members have day jobs and other commitments, and sometimes despite the best of intentions there is discontinuity of attendance, so as frustrating as it can be to staff leadership, little should be assumed about what board members may recall of the key points of a strategic plan, or an action taken two meetings ago. Repetition and reinforcement are important.

Culture and communication are key.

What binds people to any institution is a sense of purpose and belonging. A strong board creates traditions, rituals, and recognition to strengthen and sustain these vital connections.

Find the right zone between excessive conflict and unreflective agreement.

Boards should not be rubber stamps, and need to exercise appropriate scrutiny and inquiry concerning staff plans and recommendations. Self-confident staff leaders understand and welcome this. But in a well-run organization that has confidence in its leadership, there should be in normal circumstances a presumption of support for and deference to staff leadership. A culture of engrained suspicion or repeated argument is not a healthy one.