Congratulations! You are the new board chair. Now what? Many organizations have just welcomed a new board chair, or will be welcoming one in the upcoming months.
In this episode, we discuss the roles and characteristics of a board chair. We also touch on the initial steps a new board chair should take to get their tenure off to a positive start.
Transcript:
Congratulations. You’re the new board chair. Now what?
In this week’s episode. I 501(c)You the podcast for nonprofit board members, I want to talk to you, the new board chairs, and maybe a little bit about the orientation, what to expect and how to approach your new role.
Hey, I want to jump in real quick. Somebody asked me the other day, what does the Corley Company do? Well, we do three things for non-profits. One, we facilitate meetings. Yes, like board retreats where we discuss governance and strategy with all the members of the board. Number two, advise CEOs and help them as they make decisions and implement actions to drive their mission.
And then finally, we produce podcasts such as this one, but also for a number of nonprofits to help you get the word out, get your message out. So if you’re interested in any of these services, please feel free to reach out to Michael@thecorleycompany.com. Now back to the podcast.
Now, some of you may be new those you want a calendar fiscal year, but if not coming soon, many board transitions will happen over the next six months, primarily in the summer.
And let’s just start off with remember what the board chair role is. You really have got three primary roles lead in manage the board. Your job is to manage that board of directors, directors. That’s why you’re chairman or chair of the board. You direct meetings and committees. That is under your purview. So those are meetings of the board, of course, board meetings and the various committees and committee structures that you’ll have per your bylaws and maybe most importantly, arguably most importantly, support the CEO, the executive director to help him or her move the organization forward.
Now they’re really more characteristics of a good board chair. So I hope you’ll exhibit these. If you’re in that positions. One, you want to be passionate about the mission and for leading, that’s both. Now you’re on the board because you’re passionate about the mission. I hope. But you really need to have a passion for leading, leading the 12 to 15 people that are your co board members and all the responsibilities that lie therein.
And number two, you committed to the role and the time required into the relationship with the CEO. So being a board chair does take time, additional time for a board member for obvious reasons. Hopefully in you want to manage that time and you want to make sure you have the time for that and also time spend with the CEO, the executive director, that one on one relationship oftentimes is the secret sauce to the success of the nonprofit.
Number three. Third characteristic of a good board chair is to be humble, Don’t arrive with the answers. You know, I see this oftentimes somebody, especially from the business world, a leader from the business world, will come on to a board and become chair of the board. And they feel like at like at work, they got to have all the answers.
The beautiful thing about a nonprofit board is you’ve probably surrounded by other people that are strong leaders, whether it’s in business, industry, education, whatnot. And so these people are just as smart as you oftentimes have some wonderful ideas, want to contribute, and that properly facilitated, you could draw out better answers from the group. Then if somebody comes up with it solely.
And then probably the fourth characteristic is really a characteristic of generosity. Generosity with your time. We’ve talked about that already, a little bit of generosity in terms of being humble and generosity with your money. You should be a contributor to the organization. So those four characteristics really comprise a good board chair, passionate, committed, humble and generous. So let’s hope you’ve got those characteristics as you come into this new position, position of board chair And so now what?
Now what? Really, when you come in, it’s like any new positions, even like your first new day at work, you’ve got a period that you want to get ground, to get a general understanding, a good solid footing of what it means to be in this role and what you would in this case. What resources are you going to need?
What research do you need to do your job? What is available? So this all is covered in typically an orientation. What are your expectations? What are the expectations of you? What are your expectations of the CEO? So there really should be a time where you to spend, whether it’s one meeting or a series of meetings, defining the relationship and how you’re going to move forward, what are going to be your obligations and commitments as the chair, What are the time commitments?
What meetings will you attend? What meetings are there? When are they? What’s the process for developing a meeting? Meaning the agenda? How does that get constructed all the way through to the minutes, that decision making in between? Do you follow Robert’s Rules? If so, do you understand them? If not, you’ve got to get up to speed on them.
How do how is the work done for the board, even though you’ve been on the board as a board member for zero two years, doesn’t mean you really know how the work is done if you have not been the chair in so understanding that role, understanding the bylaws, the organizing documents, it gives you great information as you move forward to lead that that board.
You know, the key to starting off as a board chair is getting a good grounding, a good understanding, and developing that working relationship with the CEO and also being intentional on developing relationships with your fellow board members. You may know them from going to the meetings once a month or whatever period of time it is, but the relationship is different because now you’re there, quote unquote, their boss, their leader, I guess you really not their boss, you’re their leader.
And so the relationship differs now. And so you will want to extend time to reach out and get to know each of of the board members, because at the end of the day, everything we do in the nonprofit sector is about relationship building. And that’s critically important. So I’m a pause there. I’ll probably come back in future podcasts to talk, dive a little bit more deeply into the topic of a board chair and the success of a board chair.
But for those of you that may be starting something new in that role, it’s a wonderful it’s a wonderful experience. I highly encourage it really takes your leadership skills to a whole nother level. It comes with some challenges and it comes with some time commitments. But boy, the benefits sure exceed any of the costs in terms of your your time and your energy and your bandwidth.
And I just encourage you to focus on a period of grounding, that grounding over the first month, if you will, were really allow you to have a very successful term as board chair. This is Michael Corley with the I501cYou podcast and we’ll see you next week.
Timestamps:
00:00 You are the new board chair, now what?
01:05 Roles of the board chair
01:35 Characteristics of a good board chair
03:30 Initial steps of a new board chair
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