As you may have gathered by now, one of my deepest interests around nonprofit governance/boards is the role of the board chair. Back a few years ago, I was a member of a team of practitioners who are members of the Alliance for Nonprofit Management Governance Affinity group (aka learning community) that conducted a national study on board chairs and I have been hooked on the subject ever sense. I believe we the board chair to be at the center of board leadership and an individual that can actually make or unmake and effective nonprofit board. You can view the findings from our team's learning here.
Meanwhile I was reminded of a 2010 study by Chris Cornforth, Yvonne Harrison and Vic Murray and I am sharing their learning here. I believe we can't know enough and need to keep on discovering how to do best.
- fair, open to ideas, focused on building high quality relationships with others and encouraging team work and having a considerable impact on the effectiveness of the board, Chief Executive (CE), and organisation.
- The least effective Chairs were those that were not seen as team players and were unable to manage inadequate performance by the key actors with whom they interact. Various dimensions of a Chair’s emotional and spiritual intelligence were associated with his or her level of impact. In particular chairs with high impact were perceived as being socially aware, able to manage relationships and helping and service motivated.
- The Chairs’ contribution was seen primarily in terms of process(e.g. managing board meetings) and
- content (e.g. providing information) rather than as a source of inspiration to boost board morale and board member engagement.
- Chairs tended to rate their own performance and impact higher than other people they work with did. There is a potential danger that if this gap becomes too wide these relationships could become dysfunctional.