From the Retiring Nonprofit Executive Director: Is This Board Up to This Task?

by Bruce Scott, Senior Search Consultant

The relationship between a nonprofit executive director and the nonprofit board of directors is unique, powerful, tenuous, and wonderful. Working for a nonprofit board is an employment relationship with a changing group of personalities who are judging performance, a gathering of people with a common belief in the cause but by design extremely diverse backgrounds.

By law and best practice the board governs – and in doing so employs, evaluates, supports and replaces the executive director.

At the same time, the best executive directors take a leadership role to “develop” the board, shaping it through selection and training, then inspiring and supporting their work. Good Executive Directors take pride in the quality and capability of the board as a whole and feel ownership of the partnership and what has been accomplished through it.

It’s not surprising then that when an Executive Director plans her retirement, one of the top questions is “how well did I build this board up to the most important task they ever face?” In some cases, the departure is well planned and the board is actually grooming two years out for a smooth succession. Usually, however, there’s a question in the Executive Director’s mind about how the board will perform.

Some Executive Directors have shielded their boards from big decisions to keep them out of the way, or through their own competence in big decisions allowed a board to become overconfident and complacent. Others have simply exerted strong influence to override a lot of messy deliberation. Now looking at the transition process, the Executive Director may have a tinge of regret and panic.

Can they do this, can they find a group process, will a strong leader emerge or will a loud leader simply take over? Am I going to have to run this too?

When an Executive Director retires, an important conversation between her and the top board leadership should be “how do you see this board’s capacity and readiness to take this on?”

The retiring Executive Director is an expert on the board and how it functions and which quiet leaders should be asked to step forward. The departing Executive Director has guided (or avoided) group decision making and knows where the strengths and potholes lie. His or her greatest contribution at this point is to guide the board in creating a selection process that will both leave them with great confidence in the hire decision and create a robust new energy of unity to face the post-hire transition process.

If the Executive Director wants to lead and control, or the board expects him to manage this task as he has everything else, the rare and powerful opportunity for confidence and unified energy is missed.

Good advice to the board: have that conversation and use your best expert (the retiring Executive Director) to assess your readiness as a leadership group in the first transition step to a new Executive Director.

Also see: Hiring a Nonprofit Executive Director – First Steps for the Board

The Moran Company, specializes in nonprofit executive searches for executive directors, directors of development/fundraising staff and other top nonprofit leadership.

© 2014 The Moran Company, “We find great nonprofit executives”