This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Boards During Transition
During transition periods, boards take on a more direct leadership role. They write the job description for the next CEO. What, after all, is an executive job description—or what should it be—but a statement of the organization's objectives and strategies and how the board expects the new leader to carry them out? At the same time, boards must manage senior staff so that programs continue as smoothly as possible and financial accountability is maintained so that staff can feel secure enough to perform their job in the absence of executive leadership. And boards have to create effective communications with all the organization's stakeholders—clients, staff, funders, community supporters—assuring all that the organizational agenda will survive and thrive despite the departure of the current leader.
The more we focused on the critically important role of boards during the transition process and throughout, the more we realized that our book is largely about volunteer leadership: how to work effectively during the transition stage and how to be effective through what we call the cycle of leadership. By that, we mean the stages leaders pass through, from the honeymoon to vulnerability to a kind of mature confidence.
Even among relatively experienced people, leadership capacity in any single organization takes time to develop. New CEOs have to understand the levers of power. They have to create alliances with stakeholders to build programs and raise money. To make these alliances, new leaders have to figure out how to fit into the organizational culture. They have to build trust and credibility to have people come along on the journey—particularly in nonprofits, where financial incentives (high salaries and performance bonuses) are largely absent. It takes time to be a truly effective nonprofit leader. Rapid turnover robs leaders and organizations of that time, ultimately creating stagnation. From one transition to the next, organizations too often tread water instead of reaching toward their potential.
The absence of sufficient leadership development in the nonprofit sector is no secret. Almost all the foundations that invest in nonprofits acknowledge the dilemma. Sometimes they wring their hands in anguish but don't quite know what to do about it, suggesting, for example, that organizations merge so that scale will produce opportunity for leadership development. They also know that boards of directors often represent part of the problem. They willingly fund board development training, which sometimes proves extraordinarily effective but more often trends toward interventions with too little "dosage."
There are few sustained or substantial programs for board leaders, although their skills and knowledge essentially make or break the effectiveness of leadership transitions. Ironically, they are the neglected element in the leadership transition. In many ways, this book is for them. The transition period is the one in which they are front and center. They must shine. They must set the stage for all that follows.