How to Handle a Board Member Who Is Micromanaging the Executive Director

We have a board member that is trying to micromanage the Executive Director. Help!

This is common for board members who’s past experience has been in grassroots organizations with no staff.

This is an issue for the Chair to address. The Chair should make sure that there are no operational issues in the discussion portion of the agenda. The Chair is also responsible for steering the board member back towards the topic at hand. Consider if using a consent agenda would be useful to address the behavior.

This is also a good issue to address in the board orientation. Board members should know where their responsibility ends and where management’s responsibility begins, and the nonprofit’s stage in their lifecycle guides where this line is drawn.

Sometimes, assigning a board member to a task that matches their skills and passion is worthwhile. This could be a board committee or a volunteer role outside of the board functions.

Addressing board micromanagement requires clear meeting leadership, strong board orientation, and well-defined roles that keep governance and management responsibilities appropriately aligned.