Tip #34 Is the Board Chair the Boss?
In the clarity of roles and relationships delineated in the Policy Governance® model, the board chair is neither the boss of the chief executive nor the boss of the board.
With respect to the board chair and the chief executive, neither is the boss of the other. They are colleagues, each accountable to the board for carrying out the responsibilities of their individual roles. The chief executive is responsible for achieving the board-determined Ends (specific outcomes for specific persons with results worth the resources expended) and operating the organization within the boundaries or parameters established through board policies (called executive limitations). The board chair is responsible for ensuring an effective and efficient board process in accordance with the board’s expectations of itself as defined in its governance process and board-management delegation policies. The true boss of the chief executive is not the board chair but the board as a whole. The board as a whole defines its expectations of the chief executive and holds the chief executive accountable for compliance with these expectations. So, if the board has ten members, the chief executive does not have ten bosses. The chief executive has one boss – not the board chair but the board as whole. The chief executive has one set of board-approved expectations for which he or she is accountable to the board as a whole.
With respect to the board chair and the board, the board chair is not the boss of the board but its “employee”, appointed by his or her fellow board members to serve as their leader and to be accountable to the board as a whole. John Carver, the creator of the Policy Governance® model, has described the board chair as the servant-leader of the board. (The Unique Double Servant Leadership Role of the Board Chairperson, The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership, 1999) The board chair leads by serving and serves by leading his or her fellow board members. Recently, I read a newspaper article where a couple prospective board chairs where interviewed and asked about their vision and agenda if they were to be selected as board chair. This questioning seems to imply an understanding of the board chair as someone who directs a board in accordance with his or her own self-determined priorities. This is inconsistent with an understanding of the role of the board chair as facilitating the board’s development of the vision and priorities of the board as a whole which vision and priorities the board chair serves.
The role of the board chair is an extremely important and challenging one, a role of servant-leader of the board and not the role of boss of the board or of the chief executive.
For additional information about the Policy Governance® model, please click https://www.boardsoncourse.com/policy-governance.