“ἐπὶ δηλήσει δὲ καὶ ἀδικίῃ εἴρξειν (Do no harm)” – Hippocratic oath
The first action a public board member takes upon being elected or appointed is to swear (or affirm) an oath of office, as prescribed in law, that promises among other things to support the constitution. Even private boards have a ceremony in which the new member is encouraged to dedicate their efforts to the best interests of the whole enterprise. We tend to think in terms of what a board member can DO. But what about what a board member should NOT DO?
A commitment all board members should also make comes from medicine’s ancient Hippocratic oath – a promise that, while striving to do good, they will (first) do no harm. It is in this combination of the positive (striving to do good for owners, for constituents, for taxpayers) and the negative (avoiding instances in which the board may do harm) that board members find the secret to board success.
The secret to this dual oath is that effective boards know not only what to do, they make it a priority to know what NOT to do. It is with this thought in mind that we should review what is too often wrong with board members that impacts the boards on which they serve.
Self-Governance is Not Easy
Self-governance has inspired criticism and even ridicule ever since the ideas of democracy and republic emerged a few millennia ago. More recently, our Founding Fathers feared for the viability of their experiment in democratic republicanism, and the rest of the world sneered at the American naivete in even trying it. More contemporary portrayal of boards in popular media, from Mark Twain (“In the first place God made idiots…“) to Mr. Holland’s Opus (elimination of the music program) finds board members to be an easy target.
Boardsmanship
Before addressing the board as a collective body, we should consider the board member as an individual. Boards are not the same as, nor are they simply the sum of, their members. We are individuals first. It is from individual board members that boards are made. But acting together, the board is a totally separate ‘person’, one that while related to its component parts is still a distinctly different entity.
Board members’ individual personalities and behaviors are as varied as the population from which they are drawn.
What Board Member Behaviors Are Harmful?
The worst boardsmanship behaviors are abusive. They have the capacity to do immediate harm. Abusive board members:
- Attack fellow member(s) rather than their arguments;
- Defame or abuse employees while critiquing the district;
- Use the bully pulpit as a bully’s cudgel with which to beat opposing opinions into submission;
- Violate the confidentiality of executive session discussions.
What Board Member Behaviors Are Dysfunctional?
Although the worst behaviors are immediately harmful, they are also self-evidently outrageous and can usually be directly addressed. Dysfunctional behavior is more insidious because, over time, it damages the organization while going unrecognized. Dysfunctional board member behavior is the hardest to cure because it is ingrained in so many boards. Dysfunctional board members are those who:
- Try to be the executive by duplicating management functions
- Are inconsistent in behavior from one situation to another
- Cannot identify principles that guide their decision-making
- Focus primarily on the past, blaming ‘culprits’ rather than constructing the future
- Spend more time ‘admiring the problem’ than taking action
- Are easily intimidated by angry or outspoken stakeholders
- Are unwilling or unable to delegate staff work
- ‘Know-it-all’ and are unwilling to listen to (and learn from) staff or one another
- Cannot appreciate or respect other points of view
- Are uncommitted to the values and mission of the organization
- Don’t spend the time needed to read board packets before meetings
- Lack the time and energy to do necessary board work during meetings
- Undermine the executive’s leadership role, and the organizational chain of command
- Undermine the role of the board by dealing directly with the CEO or staff
- Give in to a compulsion to ‘fix’ things
When combined with the factors listed above, the significant authority wielded by a board of directors has the potential to do major damage to the organizational mission by impeding the ability of the board, and the organization, to function.
What Board Member Behaviors Are Just Plain Ineffective?
Desirable qualities for effective board members are one thing. Certainly such attributes as being a good listener, reading materials, studying issues, and engaging in deliberation and debate with an open mind will contribute to board work. But what are the behaviors of an ineffective board member? Ineffective board members impede the work of the board and the work of the organization. Well-intended but ineffective board members are characterized by the following attributes:
- Board members who believe they must approve all staff initiatives before allowing the executive to act demonstrate: They are not leading – they are following (reacting to) the initiative of the staff.
- Board members who do not have control over their agenda demonstrate: They are willing to let others (staff and/or constituents) determine what happens in their meetings.
- Board members who allow a member with prior administrative, legal, or technical experience to take the lead in board work demonstrate: They are willing to allow one of their members, a part-time individual, to become a de facto (if only part-time) CEO.
- Board members who want to respond to every ‘burning issue of the day’ that comes along demonstrate: They lack a coherent ongoing strategy for exercising their authority.
- Board members who are silent before-hand, then disrupt operations by over-correcting when adjustment is needed, demonstrate: They are unable to handle the full range of their authority; they cannot fine-tune their exercise of that authority.
- Board members who lack executive or content expertise in ‘the business’ of the organization demonstrate: They are ill-prepared to teach or coach their CEO or staff how to do their job.
- Board members who are frustrated by failed or incomplete attempts to guide staff behavior demonstrate: They cannot (effectively) directly supervise the work of staff.
- Board members who are slow in coming to decisions demonstrate: They are incapable of managing an organization in real-time.
- Board members for whom community or stakeholder engagement only occurs when engaged in conversation with meeting attendees demonstrate: They have no connection with their constituency as a whole.
- Board members who evaluate their CEO only at one brief moment in time at year’s end (or are too busy with other business to evaluate the CEO at all) demonstrate: That accountability is not very important to them.
Coming Next: What’s Wrong with Boards?