Leadership at the Top: the role of the Chief Executive in empowering the board

This blog is written by Chris Cornforth, Emeritus Professor of Organisational Governance and Management and board member of the Association of Chairs. This is the third in a series of blogs he has written that focus on the triangle of relationships between the chief executive, chair, and the governing body or board of voluntary organisations. How well these actors collaborate and work together is crucial to the success of the top leadership team.

In the previous blogs (see one and two), I examined the relationship between the chair and the chief executive, and the chair and the board. In this blog, I will focus on the relationship between the chief executive and the board.[i]

The Chief Executive and the Board

The chief executive is the lynchpin connecting the board to the organisation and its staff. He or she can play a crucial role in empowering, or conversely disempowering the board. Yet the important role of the executive often seems to be overlooked in initiatives to improve board effectiveness. The vast majority of effort has been devoted to improving boards themselves, through for example: codes of practice, standards for board members, board self-assessment, improved board recruitment practices, board member training and development. While these initiatives are very important they tend not to give enough weight to two important features of the relationship between boards and management. First, that it is not possible to completely separate governance from management – the roles of boards and executives are interdependent. Second, while boards have a good deal of formal power, being the ultimate authority within the organisation, it is management that controls the main leavers of power. Managers have the time, information and resources at their disposal to make things happen.

What can Chief Executives do to promote effective boards? 

Given that the executive team are in the most powerful position to make changes what can they do to help make sure the board of their organisation works well? There are seven key activities.

Creating the right climate.  Perhaps most importantly boards can only function well if there is a climate of openness and trust between board members and the executive, where constructive criticism and challenge are accepted and valued. It is the board’s job to subject management proposals to critical scrutiny to ensure they are sound and in the best interests of the organisation and its beneficiaries. This places important responsibilities on both parties if it is to work well. Management have to be willing to expose their ideas to critical examination and be open to making changes. In addition they have to be prepared to let the board know when things go wrong or at not working well. Nothing can undermine the trust between the board and executive more than if the board feels it is being kept in the dark of mislead. Equally board members have a responsibility to ensure their contributions are constructive and that they give managers and staff appropriate support where needed.

Helping structure the board’s work. Boards require a structure and resources to do their work. Effective chief executives work with the chair to ensure this is in place. For example establishing a schedule of board and sub-committee meetings, organising periodic away days, making sure agendas are agreed and papers are available well in advance of meetings, and working with the board to make sure committees have appropriate terms of reference. Simply making sure boards always have papers a week in advance of meetings can make a huge difference to their effectiveness.

Providing the board with relevant, timely information. In order to carry out its role effectively the board relies crucially on the executive to provide relevant and timely information about the decisions it has to make. Much of this information is routine such as budgetary reports, financial statements and performance indicators, but others will depend on the issues and challenges the organisation faces at the time. It can be quite a difficult balancing act for the executive to provide the right information at the right time: too much information and the board may drown in the detail, too little and they may miss key issues. Common problems include presenting boards with undigested management reports that obscure important issues in detail, or slipping important issues on to the end of agendas, when everyone is tired and dying to get home.

Help recruiting and developing the board.  Effective executives can play an important role in helping to recruit and develop the board. Boards often need help in developing appropriate recruitment procedures, for example working out the skills needed on the board and developing ‘job’ specifications and descriptions for new board members. Executives can also assist board development, helping induct new board members, introducing the board to the organisation and its staff, and working with the board to arrange appropriate training and support. With the chair the executive can also help facilitate communication between board members and team building, through for example providing opportunities for social interaction and celebrating success.

Raising awareness of key challenges and changes.  Because it is their full-time job executives are often in a better position than the board to identify important challenges the organisation faces - alerting the board to important new opportunities or threats and to facilitating strategic ‘conversations’ about how the organisation might respond. Similarly, they are often in a better position to identify performance problems or internal weaknesses that need to be addressed, and to help look for better ways of doing things. Often these issues are better dealt with at periodic ‘away-days’ where boards and staff have the opportunity to think about longer team issues away from the routine business of the board, or the day-too-day pressures of work.

Setting high standards.   An important part of the board’s role is to oversee the work of the executive, setting goals and targets and expecting high standards. Similarly the executive can play an important role working with the chair to make the work of the board productive and rewarding by expecting high standards of performance and behaviour from board members. Many organisations are now setting out clear role descriptions and codes of practice for their boards, so it is much clearer to board members what is expected of them when they join the board.

Helping to meet the needs of board members.  Finally it is important for executives to remember that people get involved on boards for a variety of reasons: contributing to a community or cause they believe in, friendship, skill development, to make useful contacts or to gain recognition. Executives can help board members meet their needs, perhaps by offering training, involving people in the right sub-committee or working group, inviting them to social events. Board members are more likely to be committed and effective if they feel their needs are being met, while they are contributing to the organisation.

To sum up, a board is much more likely to work effectively if the chief executive and the executive team realise that a crucial part of their role is to help support, develop and service the board they work with. This is not something that can be done as an afterthought, but requires planning, thought and time, and above all the right attitude to form a constructive working relationship.

[i] In this article I’m assuming the voluntary organisation has a paid staff who are led by a chief executive, although they may be called something else such as director or manager. For simplicity, I will refer to a voluntary organisation’s governing body as its board, although again it may go by other names, such as board of trustees, or management committee.

8th November 2018