|
|
 |
The Chair and Chief Executive
By Ian Joseph - Practice Head, Charities and Not For Profit - Russam GMS
When the relationship goes wrong
If you are a Chief Executive or Chair, you know how important the relationship with “your other half” is. It is the most significant relationship for any organisation; as a Chief Executive once told me – “unless it is taken seriously, the organisation is doomed!”
The quality of the relationship between Chairs and Chief Executives is unsurprisingly affected by two things: clarity on roles and trust. But how easy are these two things to achieve?
It is too simple to suggest that a line drawn in the sand delineating responsibilities is the panacea for clarity. Chairs and boards should be much more dynamic; there is a time for a board to be more engaged and a time to step back. Sometimes, the point on this spectrum is connected with the competency of the Chief Executive; other times the circumstances that the organisation finds itself in. What is fundamental is that both Chair and Chief Executive agree that there will be times when the dynamic needs to change and this can only happen with trust...
...which is cultivated by genuine openness, by simple questions being asked at the beginning of the relationship such as “Where do you expect your authority to stop and mine to start?” But it is also accommodating to shifts in power, acknowledging all the while that the Chair and the Chief Executive have the same passion and vision for the organisation.
Broken relationships are ubiquitous and the reasons legion. Whatever the reason for the breakdown, in my experience, when a Chair is failing to lead properly and is causing problems with the Chief Executive, harmony is normally only achieved when the Chair’s term of office comes to an end – this is not good enough. Where are the mechanisms to prevent this sorry state being reached in the first place?
It is good practice to have a senior independent director on the board that can assess the mood of the other trustees in relation to the Chair and who is empowered to do something about poor Chair performance. It is one thing to have a confident Chair; it is altogether another when he fails to recognise that he is the ‘first among equals’ in terms of the rest of the board. It is also important for the Chief Executive to build strong relationships with the other members of the board so as to ensure that he is not isolated and without support.
As the custodian of the heart of the organisation, there is no room for a Chair and his ego - similarly, a Chief Executive who feels threatened rather than liberated by a strong governance structure is a danger to himself and to others around him. This is a genuine partnership and everybody connected to the organisation is counting on the partnership working.
By Ian Joseph - Practice Head, Charities and Not For Profit - Russam GMS
When the relationship goes wrong
If you are a Chief Executive or Chair, you know how important the relationship with “your other half” is. It is the most significant relationship for any organisation; as a Chief Executive once told me – “unless it is taken seriously, the organisation is doomed!”
The quality of the relationship between Chairs and Chief Executives is unsurprisingly affected by two things: clarity on roles and trust. But how easy are these two things to achieve?
It is too simple to suggest that a line drawn in the sand delineating responsibilities is the panacea for clarity. Chairs and boards should be much more dynamic; there is a time for a board to be more engaged and a time to step back. Sometimes, the point on this spectrum is connected with the competency of the Chief Executive; other times the circumstances that the organisation finds itself in. What is fundamental is that both Chair and Chief Executive agree that there will be times when the dynamic needs to change and this can only happen with trust...
...which is cultivated by genuine openness, by simple questions being asked at the beginning of the relationship such as “Where do you expect your authority to stop and mine to start?” But it is also accommodating to shifts in power, acknowledging all the while that the Chair and the Chief Executive have the same passion and vision for the organisation.
Broken relationships are ubiquitous and the reasons legion. Whatever the reason for the breakdown, in my experience, when a Chair is failing to lead properly and is causing problems with the Chief Executive, harmony is normally only achieved when the Chair’s term of office comes to an end – this is not good enough. Where are the mechanisms to prevent this sorry state being reached in the first place?
It is good practice to have a senior independent director on the board that can assess the mood of the other trustees in relation to the Chair and who is empowered to do something about poor Chair performance. It is one thing to have a confident Chair; it is altogether another when he fails to recognise that he is the ‘first among equals’ in terms of the rest of the board. It is also important for the Chief Executive to build strong relationships with the other members of the board so as to ensure that he is not isolated and without support.
As the custodian of the heart of the organisation, there is no room for a Chair and his ego - similarly, a Chief Executive who feels threatened rather than liberated by a strong governance structure is a danger to himself and to others around him. This is a genuine partnership and everybody connected to the organisation is counting on the partnership working.
