Board Liaisons: Cat wranglers and champions of strong boards

Stop me if you have heard the one about the person tasked with herding cats. It’s the notion that gathering strong personalities, tenacious professionals and overloaded leaders can be a losing battle of wills. For anyone assigned the charge of pulling these people together for something such as a board meeting date that everyone agrees to … well, you get the picture.

Mercifully, the notion of being head cat wrangler is changing. Approaches to board management and governance are being redefined as well. Board liaison positions are part of this transformation. These valued professionals lead the process of Board service from a myriad of directions. With an eye toward executive administration and effective planning, board liaisons hold the authority and responsibility to get the board functioning from a foundational point of view. This comes from a platform of structure, working knowledge of what a board needs to be accomplishing, monitoring compliance issues, individual board member performance requirements and how all the quickly moving pieces come together.

Board liaison roles are now being recognized in terms of professional development, advanced training and earned skill sets that are highly desired. It is a skilled team member position with a described level of competencies and compensation reflective of the role. In effect, the board liaison professional is now being sought after as an instrumental part of any successful and highly functioning board. In this position, the professional board liaison adjunct, is not just another task heaped onto the plate of an already over-burdened staffer. It is a leadership role that is cultivated and continually developed in response to an ever-changing world of board service. It is not a “day of” administrative role or side job requirement.

 

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