Week 4: Staff Report to Board

First, the only "employee" of the board is the senior pastor. When other staff members are members of the board, there is often confusion as to who is responsible to whom. Do other staff members report to the board or to the senior pastor? It should be the senior pastor but when other staff sit on boards it is often the case the boards start to manage them as well. In good governance all staff report to the senior leader and the senior leader both sits as a board member and is accountable to the board.I have seen a number of situations where staff were always at board meetings and the senior pastor was unable to deal with problematic issues of performance of these staff members because they were "members" of the board. This tied the hands of the senior leader to lead and caused significant pain. There are cases where staff will use their "proximity" to board members to do end runs around the senior leader and if they are board members this becomes very easy if they are so inclined.Second, remember that the job of boards is to govern, set policy, direction and provide oversight. The job of staff is to deal with the day to day ministry issues and to ensure that the policies, direction and ministry initiatives of the board are carried out. These are two very different responsibilities. One does not want board members doing management and one does not want staff members doing the job of the board. When staff members are regularly at board meetings it often confuses the responsibilities of board and staff or policy and management.