A chair should never be the single point of failure on a board. But with such responsibilities from agenda setting to board cadence, the accumulation of tasks, responsibility and influence can quickly add up. Most chairs do not intentionally set out to do this. However, a chair who is a bottleneck is bad for both the individual, the board, and the charity itself.
In this article governance consultant Suneet Sharma considers what can be done to share the load of the chair, suggesting some practices and processes that can help.
Using a vice-chair: Delegation
Usually, delegation is the first port of call when dealing with accumulation of responsibilities at the feet of a chair. Having a vice-chair is a straightforward way to ensure that pressure is shared and managed from the role of chair. It gives a direct home for delegation of responsibilities and another trusted pair of hands to handle the sensitive and weighty matters that would be the chair’s responsibility.
Be sure to update your Scheme of Delegation and policies as well as check your governing document and role descriptions when implementing this to ensure proper integration on paper before deploying it as a solution. This will ensure effectiveness and that the remit of the role is succinctly defined to be impactful. Always include the chair and board in this process to ensure collective agreement to delegation.
Co-chairing: Complementary leadership
Co-chairing is no longer a novel phenomenon. From Clean Break to Board Racial Diversity UK, co-chairing is becoming increasingly common in the sector. BRDUK founder and Association of Chairs trustee Malcolm John is a key advocate of this model- you can read more on that here.
It may be considered at the top of the list of options where there is a shared leadership structure, culture and a focus on accessibility. Being a chair can be a demanding role and splitting responsibilities and allowing for sharing of influence can unlock the “two heads are better than one” approach with complementary strengths and skills.
When implementing this it is important to be mindful of who holds the final say in governance matters, how your governing document handles the chair role and the equitable division of work.
A note on succession
Both solutions at 1 and 2 are great mechanisms for succession planning and disseminating the accumulation of influence, over dependence or smoothing out wrinkles in a chair’s role.
Succession planning from a skilled incumbent chair can be tricky business. To be effective any chair will have built relationships, contacts and subtler influence. The best chairs do so deliberately and with awareness that the longevity and success of the charity should not become dependent on these dynamics. However, should problems arrive the timely delegation or distribution of responsibilities can help to smooth the path of succession for the longevity of the charity.
Collective responsibility: A feature to be relied upon
A chair may be first among equals, but your fellow trustees are there to help you. Where they are committee chairs this holds even more true. It is about how you see, respond to and manage many responsibilities.
Make sure your trustees are supported and developed so they can effectively carry out their roles. Work together, have regular meetings and discuss workload and responsibility openly. A buddy system will also help drive effectiveness and give you a more informal setting to discuss your role. This will help you identify pinch points, opportunities to share work and delegate.
If there are issues with collective responsibility consider role descriptions, annual check ins, training or development connections and tools such as mentoring, buddying or coaching. These can help develop your fellow trustees alongside you as chair, ensuring that they feel equipped and confident to take on responsibilities in line with their board roles, and not leave everything to you as chair.
Induction and refreshers: Lean in
These are key touch points for any chair and provide an opportunity for reflection and resourcing. Be directive, and seek out training and development that will enable you to thrive in your chair role.
Having a cyclical calendar of training you can develop and use can be enormously helpful to facilitate growth in capacity and skills in your role as chair. Be strategic about what training you do to get the most out of the investment for your charity. Don’t discount the value of well-timed training and development, particularly around soft skills that enable board facilitation, which I have seen be very effective. The more confident and better equipped you are to carry out your role, the more you’ll be able to lead effectively, delegate where needed, and equip others to help you.
Peer groups: Leverage your network
Peer learning is an integral and rich part of any experience of being a chair. Likely when you come across an issue someone would have dealt with it before. Having peer support is vital when it can feel professionally isolating as chair. Many peer spaces for chairs are gracious, informed, empathetic and practical.
Of course, be aware of confidentiality and sensitivity in these spaces but if you tread sensibly this can be your most valuable resource in times of turmoil as chair. It can help you carry the mental load a little easier, as well as ask questions, explore solutions, and learn what has worked for others in similar situations.
Facilitation, consultation and coaching: External assistance matters
As a chair sometimes you feel you need to have all the answers. But sometimes someone outside your organisation can see the issues you are presented with clearer than you can. Being close and involved in matters can compromise objectivity or simply blind you to the execution and perception of matters within and outside your charity. That’s where a timely facilitation with an ally, consultation with an expert or support via a mentor or coach can make all the difference, helping you unpack the issues and explore solutions.
These avenues are less often used as conventional route but are just as valuable. Use your intuition and fellow trustees’ insight to guide a facilitator and their input can be timely to ultimate success. I once was on the board of a charity that really needed to unlock foresight and tap into trustee skills, a skilled afternoon of facilitation was exactly what was necessary to deal with those challenges and was ultimately worth easily over 5 times the fees paid in effectiveness.
Skilled chairs operate with greater responsibility than the rest of the board. It takes awareness, practice and perception to navigate their responsibilities in a way that leaves the charity stronger and more effective than they arrive at. The chair remains first among equals, but never the only person carrying the sole weight of leadership.
About the author
Suneet Sharma is an experienced trustee, a governance specialist, and currently a governance consultant and Governance and Membership Manager for a major subject association. Connect with Suneet on LinkedIn.
Leave a Reply