In a recent development at GM, the board chair, Ed Whitacre Jr., will serve as CEO while he and the board search for a permanent successor having just completed the firing of the 'till now chief executive, Fritz Henderson. According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Whitacre and GM’s newly appointed board believed Henderson wasn’t moving the company in the right direction. Note, the US Government ousted GM's CEO Rick Wagoner shortly after this year’s bail-out in addition to seating Mr. Whitacre. Perhaps humorously, the Journal suggested that Mr. Whitacre may follow former VP Cheney's action where, given the task to find a VP, he chose himself.
Whatever the outcome, it is not totally unusual in nonprofits for the board chair or some board member to take over, at least temporarily, when the exec moves on (willingly or unwillingly). But if a board member does take on the role of exec, is it really in the best interest of the nonprofit?
I'm not convinced that it is. A long time ago, when I was younger, I was removed from my position of exec of a nonprofit. Waiting in the wings was a board member, unemployed at the time and ready to step-in. He and the organization both lasted about a year, giving the organization a sum total of 16 years of life. Whether I should have been retained is of course not the subject for this discussion. What is a better discussion is whether or not nonprofit board membership provides enough experience and skill to be an effective exec. And yes, maybe there's some plausible conflict of interest questions too (duty of loyalty).
On the question of whether board membership provides enough capacity/experience to be an effective exec -- no, I believe not. Board members have a special set of skills and experience that do not instantly apply to the fundamental management skills needed for operating a nonprofit, nor even managing a board for that matter (Think: how many board chairs do you know that cause you to wonder what they did to qualify, other than time served?).
On the question of is there a conflict of interest -- I believe not necessarily -- possibly, but not necessarily. After-all, isn't the board member stepping in to fill a gap? On the other hand, we must understand what role if any the board member in question had in creating the situation that required a "stepping-in".
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