Nonprofit Boards: Being Goal- vs. Task-Oriented and the Challenges of Staying in Your Lane.
When I was a nonprofit Executive Director (ED), i.e. what the CEO role in the nonprofit structure is often called, I often ran into challenges with board members who would make requests from me that seemed like little things to them - things they’d ask me to drop other things to do the day or week we spoke, often without realizing that this would put me off track for my own work. During this time, I was part of an industry-focused nonprofit executive leadership network. At our annual in person meeting, we went around the room of about 15 nonprofit directors, and those in the chief executive role shared their biggest problems. One topic came up from every single leader: Boards putting things on our “to do” list when our dance cards were already full - and ignoring EDs when we shared this and asked them to stop adding things.
I was both sad and felt like the room of people understood me both. I wish I could say this happens rarely, but it doesn’t - as clearly shown by that room full of people.
Often boards don’t understand the ins and outs of what makes a nonprofit tick on a daily basis. They aren’t reading or responding to what can sometimes be hundreds of emails per week. They aren’t trying to keep all the balls in the air - program, finance, legal, HR, partnerships, etc. And their “simple” requests put bigger more pressing operational needs behind whatever the board member is requesting, even if it is not urgent at that time.
I’ve also been on boards that respected the Executive Director entirely, leaving him/her to do the day to day work and just let us know how things were going - leaving board tasks to the board and operations tasks to the director. That was what I’d call ideal.
I had one board president who was excellent to work with. He and I had a conversation, after he’d left the board and I was navigating a micromanaging board president - and he referred to this as boards choosing if they were going to be task-managment-oriented or goal-oriented management. The former being when the board wants to understand and have input on the day-to-day tasks that a nonprofit pursues; the latter being when they give the ED/staff a task, then just ask for updates on it, empowering the ED to do their job with trust.
When board members assign specific tasks or make specific asks to an ED, it puts the ED in an awkward position. Do they drop everything and do the task - because the person who can hire/fire them asked for it - even if it’s not urgent? What if it’s not even important - and the ED knows that? What about when they do it to staff members under an ED? Does the staff member prioritize the board request or the ED expectations for their work. This is one example of what it looks like when a board micromanages the ED and staff.
Boards that meet with the ED once per month rarely have a good feel for what the ED does day-to-day, nor should they be in those weeds unless they are micromanaging. The ED may be working 4-5 days per week - and will feel dissatisfied and disrespected if their board overreaches into their lane. It is up to the board to respect that an ED is doing the work to accomplish the goals at hand, and it is also up to the ED to ask the board for help when needed. Both ideally stay in their lanes, allowing them to more efficiently partner together.
If you’re a board member - also keep in mind that request tone makes a difference. If you know the ED is busy and say “hey if you can fit this in…” as a gentle request, rather than treating the ED like they are the organization’s administrative and your personal assistant - that can go a long way for the request feeling like a request, rather than micromanagement. Just keep in mind: They are often juggling big items, and your request will pull their focus away from those perhaps more important items. Is what you are requesting really more important than their other work? And it may be! Just a question worth asking yourself.
Some additional reading for nonprofit board members on this topic: