The Board’s Real Job Isn’t Oversight--It’s Direction

Most boards and their board members are active and often very attentive. They review and read the briefs and board packs, attend the board meetings, ask probing questions, review and approve budgets, and take comfort in the reassuring pace of what can be referred to as "good governance." And yet, many associations with highly competent boards still end up somewhere they never intended to go, following a strategy that quietly dissolves, a value proposition that becomes ambiguous and blurry, with a promise to membership that becomes a catchphrase, and not an experience. 

This is the cold truth: Oversight does not automatically create direction. However, it can create control, ensure compliance and tidy reporting. Meanwhile, direction – the disciplined choice of what matters the most – requires something quite different. 

If a board is serious about governance, it must learn to do more than supervise and control. It must decide and direct.

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