“They’re supposed to support me. But all they ever do is criticize.”

“I wish they’d stop interfering and just let me do my job.” 

“They just don’t get it. They think they do. But they don’t.”

I’ve coached some outstanding nonprofit chief executives with highly committed boards. Yet frustrations such as those paraphrased above seem to be the rule rather than the exception, even when the chief executive’s relations with the board are good. These tensions matter: weak board-executive partnerships can undermine organizational effectiveness and contribute to executive turnover. 

If you’re a chief executive and this is how you sometimes feel about your board, you’re not alone. But fantasizing about life without a board isn’t the answer. 

First, the board protects you. Without it, there would be no buffer between you and mob justice by donors, staff, clients, volunteers and other community stakeholders. Accountability to the board through its chair or president gives you a single address for setting goals, assessing performance and seeking support.

Second, the board protects the organization from you. Without its oversight, you’d have more power than is healthy for one individual in a community institution. Unchecked authority increases the temptation to cut corners on financial transparency, hiring and firing policies, program quality and other aspects of organizational operations. The board protects you and the organization from such temptations by holding you accountable for mission, progress and ethical behavior. As Louis Brandeis noted, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

What you need your board to do

Nonprofit governance literature tends to converge on three functions a board serves: to steer, to support and to oversee. 

Some chief executives think only the second function matters — that the board should provide funding and run interference when stakeholders try to impose their will on the chief executive’s decisions or the organization’s operations. In reality, all three functions are crucial. Without a shared vision and broad agreement on strategy, there is no sound basis for assessing the organization’s progress or the chief executive’s performance. That may feel like a welcome reprieve from being judged. Over time, though, the absence of robust, transparent criteria invites arbitrary, opaque ones. 

Similarly, if the board fails to oversee the chief executive, more partisan stakeholders fill the vacuum. The board must keep the chief executive honest and ensure the organization’s most important challenges are addressed, not just the easiest ones. Without that oversight, leaders can drift off course, driven by the urgent rather than the important, cobbling together temporary fixes rather than long-term solutions.

In other words, a chief executive needs a board that functions well: one that supports, steers and oversees.

Help your board help you

Unfortunately, there’s a catch. Not all boards or chairs function well. Volunteers with demanding day jobs may struggle to give their responsibilities full attention. Confusion over those responsibilities can compound the problem. Even trustees who understand their role may feel insufficiently expert in the organization’s work to steer, support and oversee the chief executive effectively.

As a result, it’s not uncommon for boards to zigzag between overly demanding standards and none at all, importing inappropriate business expectations one moment and relying on rumor rather than evidence the next.

This is where you come in. As chief executive, you’re not just the board’s employee; you’re also their partner. To get the best out of your board, you need to help them function well.

To help them steer you, draft your vision and frame the key questions. Don’t usurp the board by bringing them the finished article, but also don’t wait for them to articulate a full-blown strategic plan from scratch (or sigh with misplaced relief when they don’t). Resolve with your chair to be clear with each other, and with board members, about the kinds of engagement you’re seeking on any given topic. When are you asking for advice, when for permission and when for neither?

To help them support you, let them know what you need, what’s holding you back and how they can help. Being clear about this requires you to be both bold and vulnerable, neither shifting onto them burdens that are really yours nor pretending you’ve got it all figured out when really you haven’t. In other words, it requires you to develop real relationships. Board members are at their most supportive when they feel they’re actually making a difference. So make them feel truly seen and heard, not pandered to, hoodwinked or avoided. Use their genuine expertise, networks and authority where they are materially relevant.

To help them oversee you, provide them with the information they need to assess your performance and the organization’s progress. Research on nonprofit boards finds that they trust executives more when they provide the type and quality of information board members want. Equip them with relevant evidence and develop their appetite for demanding and reviewing it. If this sounds like giving yourself more work, that’s because it is. But trust me, it’s far less work than managing arbitrary and unpredictable interference or trying to reverse a chair’s mistrust.

Your job isn’t to be a star pupil, waiting for the board to set the agenda and always seeking the chair’s approval. Nor is it to be a conductor, playing board members against each other or restricting access to vital information to retain maximum room for maneuver. It’s to be the head coach.

As an Englishman and soccer fan, I need to tread carefully here: My model here is Jürgen Klopp, Liverpool FC’s manager from 2015 to 2024. The owners’ respect for his footballing expertise and judgment bought him enormous freedom to develop his squad, strategy and tactics. But Klopp never forgot who the boss was and took care to cultivate the owners’ trust and keep them informed. 

For those of you more into what passes for football in America, I’m told that a similarly symbiotic relationship has existed since 2013 between Andy Reid, head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, and Clark Hunt, the team’s chairman and CEO. The point is that you’ll get the best out of the board if, like Klopp and Reid, you earn their confidence by accepting their authority to govern while exercising your authority to lead.

When the going gets tough

“Sounds idyllic,” I hear you say. “But what happens when the chief executive and chair disagree deeply and passionately, and neither feels able, in good conscience, to back down?” 

First, resist climbing that tree. Convert a looming my-way-or-the-highway confrontation into a shared discussion of consequences. Frame the issue in terms of if/then rather than either/or. Focus on the matter in dispute, not on who has the power.

Second, use your expertise to make the implications concrete. Instead of “you’re wrong” or “that would be terrible,” spell out the specifics, e.g., “if we do X, then Y becomes impossible.”

Third, know where the buck stops. Appreciate the difference between a strong disagreement and an ethical, legal or professional red line. If the board makes a decision within its legitimate domain of authority that you disagree with strongly, and your efforts at persuasion have failed, then it’s time to disagree, commit and implement loyally. 

You can’t do it all alone, even if you sometimes wish you could. Years of heading institutions, developing leaders and advising boards have taught me that successful leaders know when to lead and when to follow.

In Jewish nonprofits, chief executives often have to juggle a particularly complex and potent brew of conflicting expectations of donors, staff, clients, volunteers and the wider community. That multiplicity makes a clear line of accountability especially valuable. The board, with the chair as its representative, provides a single, official address for the steering, support and oversight they need. Without it, they would face the cacophony of the crowd, unprotected and alone.

So, don’t avoid your board. Engage it. Everyone needs a boss — even you. 

Eli Gottlieb is a cultural psychologist, executive coach and consultant to institutional leaders and boards on strategy and organizational change. He is a senior fellow at the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at The George Washington University and founder of The Pivot Doctor consultancy.