I was mired in a budget spreadsheet when my phone lit up with the name of a Trustee on the foundation board that I reported to as Executive Director.  I took a second to shake the numbers out of my head, swivel my chair so I would not be distracted by the screen and took a breath to give my full attention to whatever issue or problem was on the Trustee’s mind.  I answered, and after pleasant greetings, she said: “I’m just calling to find out how you are doing.” That was it. I’m just calling to find out how you are doing. We enjoyed a free-ranging and warm conversation about life, work, problems I was working on, mutual friends, and aspirations for the year ahead. The simple, open-ended inquiry took our personal relationship and working relationship to a new level.

The conversation led me to reflect on how a focus on the Board-CEO “Relationship” obscures the value and necessity of Board-CEO relatedness and upon my own role in building personal connections.

The foundation governance literature contains ample advice and guidance on the respective formal roles of the Board and CEO. Those guides differentiate the elements of governance and the Board’s Duties of Care, Loyalty, and Wisdom from the CEO’s governance and operational responsibilities. In practice, the boundaries of governance and operations are unique to each foundation. Boards and executives can expend a great deal of energy and attention to delineating respective roles and their decision-making territory – often with a degree of tension regarding ‘who leads what?’ Role delineation is important and essential work.

However, referring to the formal governance association of the Board and CEO as a ‘relationship’ may be mistaken for attention to the Board-CEO relatedness – i.e., the rapport, friendship, trust, camaraderie, communication, and shared life experience of the humans behind the leadership titles. The truth is that much of foundation leadership involves a fuzzy sharing of roles that may ebb and flow along the path of the foundation’s change and growth. There is no great professional relationship without human relatedness. And human relatedness, in turn, can create a professional partnership able to resolve even the toughest of issues.

Making a personal connection should not only occur over a glass of wine and in the warm candlelight of a Board retreat. Simple acts of human connection can be a regular practice, off the cycle of formal meetings.  When your Board assesses its relationship with the CEO, is the discussion focused on the performance of responsibilities? Are you putting the same attention on relatedness? What would your answer be for this simple process indicator of relatedness?

  • Trustees: How often in the last year have you called your chief executive just to ask how they are doing, and do they need any support?
  • Executives: How often in the last year have you called each of your Trustees just to ask how they are doing, and do they need any support?

Being the chief executive of a foundation can be a lonely position, and the Board Chair may feel isolated in their role’s challenges of leadership and diplomacy. Relatedness builds trust and builds resilience for navigating the tricky waters of foundation leadership. Pick up the phone? 

“A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1841)