How do strong Boards handle conflict?
Boards are essential to an efficient and effective non-profit or not-for-profit organization. After all, the board approves the organization’s mission, sets its strategy, and ensures its long-term sustainability. And boards are usually full of accomplished volunteers who are passionate about the organization they serve.
On the face of it, working on or with a volunteer board seems like it should be meaningful and fulfilling. But the reality is that, with a diverse and changing group of people working together, conflicts and disagreements are inevitable.
Too often, non-profit and not-for-profit boards try to ignore conflicts, hoping they will disappear on their own. Unfortunately, unmanaged conflict frequently leads to a variety of dysfunctions such as:
Ineffective meetings
Disengaged board members who come unprepared or don’t show up at all
Board members divide into factions (and the real meeting happens before the meeting)
Defensive or limited communication between the board Chair and the Executive Director
Board members begin micromanaging the Executive Director
The Executive Director begins controlling the board
The good news is that it is entirely possible to resolve these conflicts—and to prevent further conflicts as well.
I say this not because of some sort of blind optimism but because of my personal experience. I have seen a lot of these sorts of dysfunctions in all shapes and sizes! In addition to my consulting work, I’ve experienced conflicts from all sides in the not-for-profit sector: I’ve been a volunteer, an elected Board Chair, a staff member offering front-line support, and an Executive Director.
Successful Boards Acknowledge and Assess Conflict
The first step to addressing board conflict is an honest assessment and acknowledgement of the nature and sources of the conflict. Depending on the extent of the conflict, this assessment could take place through tools like surveys, one-on-one interviews, workplace culture reviews, or engaging an external consultant.
Through this assessment, board members should resist the temptation to blame dysfunction on a few difficult individuals or a “personality conflict” between people. That usually isn’t the whole answer. Instead, boards should be particularly curious to look for systemic problems, rather than simply look to remove problematic individuals from the board or management.
Some systemic problems I see frequently are:
Unclear decision-making authority (Do subcommittees make decisions or is it only the board? Which decisions can management make without consulting the board?)
Inadequate guidelines for the boundaries between operations and governance (How much say does the board have over the day-to-day work of staff? What should management be reporting—or not reporting—to the board?)
Unclear boundaries between the role of Chair/President and Executive Director/CEO (Do these two individuals understand the difference between governance and operations? Are there guidelines for navigating the grey areas between these categories?)
Ideally, even if an external consultant is involved, board members should be invested and involved in the assessment process. By learning to assess and address conflict and dysfunction, the whole organization becomes stronger.
