It May Be Time For Some Conflict

The board feels it serves no real purpose other than rubberstamping the leader’s ideas.

The leader goes into a board meeting knowing there is a landmine but not knowing where it is.

The agenda and the decisions are predetermined in meetings held between the chair and the leader so that the board meeting feels like an FYI session.

The default position of the board and the leader is mistrust.

A board member resigns mid-term because “my schedule doesn’t allow me to give board matters the attention they deserve”.

The leader has every decision queried and critiqued against some invisible standard.

Leaders resign with anemic explanations for their untimely departure.

The board is disappointed with the lack of progress made by the leader in recruiting new board members.

Do one or more of these situations resonate with you? It isn’t a full blown conflict resolution circumstance (yet), so you aren’t ready for an outside viewpoint yet. But the lack of conflict may very well be the problem. Parking lot conversations and backroom deals serve to keep the conflict from floating to the surface. Or feeding a family and paying a mortgage may be a higher priority for the leader than the risk associated with resigning and finding a new job.

Refusing to ignore the problem is the first step toward dealing with the problem. Rather than taking Tylenol for the governance toothache, it may be time to call a dentist. The short term pain will be well worth dealing with the long term problem.