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| Path: Main Street : Resources & Library : Research Articles : Feature Article |
Two-Headed Lion: How board chairs and executive directors work together
By Paul D. Ransdell, Ed.D.
November 3, 2008
The Lion Emblem shows a two-headed lion, which symbolizes the activities of the Lions throughout the world; one is looking in the direction of all past achievements, while the other is looking at all future endeavors (West Mifflin Lions Club Memorial in Pennsylvania).
The board chair and the executive director, together, set the tone and shape the direction for the entire organization. Is that tone harmony or cacophony? Is the direction an upward trajectory or downward spiral?
The thesis of this article is that the entire organization prospers, languishes, or perishes relative to the quality of one paramount relationship between two individuals. This article describes the role and symbiotic relationship of the board chair and executive director.
Each person comes to his/her respective duties with knowledge, skills, biases, and ideas about how to best direct the future of the organization. However, harmony between the board chair and the executive director does not always result in mission advancement; nor does dissonance between the two always lead to stagnation. In fact, the relative degrees of harmony or dissonance are not even the relevant factors, and have little to do with the success or failure of most organizations.
Rather, what matters most with respect to the quality of relationship between the two has more to do with role identity than it does personality, opinion, style, or anything else. Temporarily building on that metaphor of an actor playing a role, let’s elaborate on the characters each one is playing; that is, the characteristics of each role identity.
Visionary vis-à-vis Strategist
The board chair is the visionary; the executive director is the strategist. While the chair engages the organization’s constituencies in crafting a vision for the future of the organization, the executive takes ownership and engages constituencies in the development of a strategy for realizing their shared vision.
The chair’s vision is not his own; it is culled from the reams of input from constituents, synthesized and crafted in the language that resonates back. Upon hearing about the vision, those vested with the organization will have a visceral reaction, as if hearing articulated some personal and deeply-felt desire from within their own selves.
The executive’s strategy, similarly, is not her own; rather, it too is a compilation of counsel, ideas, recommendations, and best practices from a variety of sources, which she brings forth in a plan for making progress toward fulfillment of the vision.
Sage vis-à-vis Expert
Sage is to the board chair what expertise is to the executive. Wisdom allows the organization to understand and focus on what really is, and not be taken in by how things seem. In the light of the chair’s wisdom, the executive introduces technical and practical expertise for the advancement of the organization’s goals. And wisdom is not of one’s self alone; it is hard-won by experience, to be sure, but it is also inherent in our customs and conventions. It is prescribed to us by our predecessors, a perpetuation of what humanity has learned through history, and not an invention of modernity.
Expertise, however, is sharpened like a knife-blade as we test our assumptions and know-how against the abrasive surface of current reality. Whereas wisdom is timeless and universal, expertise is task-specific and technical. That we “reap what we sow” is a statement rooted in wisdom; “cultivating and soliciting major gifts” is a matter of expertise. “Who is at the table” (quality of network) matters.
Motivator vis-à-vis Leader
As the board chair motivates and inspires; the executive leads. The motivator inspires and rallies followers around a campaign, citing historic conquests of celebrated heroes and heroines, and painting word-pictures of how things will soon be when the organization is victorious in the initiative at hand. The leader, then, provides the tactics, the procedures, by which he and the followers together will fulfill the organization's urgent mission.
The motivator sends his army into combat supremely confident of victory; the leader prepares her army to take the hill and charges up it with the troops.
Untold volumes have been written about the subject of leadership - what it is and is not - and how one becomes better at it. For our purposes, the term leadership is simply meant to convey, in the tradition of the first college presidents, “first among equals.” A leader walks the walk, one step ahead of her followers, counselling and guiding them in skill and knowledge toward a destination they may not yet see as clearly as she.
Provider vis-à-vis Manager
Every organization has a primary provider, and a primary manager; but they are not the same person. As the board chair secures and delivers resources - funds, facilities, tools, supplies, and staff - the executive manages those resources for optimal impact. The board chair is not likely involved in the details of resource management, but makes provision nonetheless, based on a set of predefined management guidelines. The manager, therefore, is the one who brings to bear the best practices of resource management, for to do less is irresponsible.Judge vis-à-vis Advocate
The board chair then, weighing all facts and relevant information, interprets the organization’s progress or lack thereof, relative to its widely understood vision and goals. Of course, the executive prepares her case and advocates for more or different resources, a clearer or different vision, more or different motivational incentives, and so on.Resonance
Together the board chair and the executive complete the duad, the yin and yang, each side essential to the fulfillment of the other. Their symbiotic relationship is what propels the organization, an intensity of progress unencumbered by opposition and incompatibility.When clear vision and viable strategy are aligned, there is resonance. Resonance occurs when sound wisdom meets with true expertise. Harmony and dissonance are no longer relevant. When the motivating energy meets with the flow of leadership, there is a quality of resonance felt and understood by the board chair and executive alike. When provision and management are aligned, the tide of resonance raises the organization.
Paul Ransdell is a senior fundraising consultant with The JCC Group in Lexington, KY. He can be reached at (859) 285-1583.
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