My ED Blew Up in a Meeting, and the Board Let It Slide. Shouldn’t Someone Have Stepped In?

Q:

"A few years ago, I was the Secretary on a Board. I’d volunteered to write a grant for the organization. At a meeting, the Executive Director suddenly yelled at me, totally out of the blue. The Chair sat beside me and said nothing. Not a word! It was unprofessional, upsetting, and left me wondering: isn’t it the Chair’s job to step in?

A:

No one deserves to be yelled at. Ever. And especially not in a nonprofit context, where we’re all supposed to be working toward the same goal and treating one another with respect. This shouldn’t happen - but it does more often than you’d like to think, and in those cases, it’s critical that people step up.

If this happened during a formal meeting, then yes, the Chair absolutely should have intervened. Part of the Chair’s role as facilitator is to ensure that meetings maintain a respectful, constructive tone. If someone raises their voice or behaves inappropriately, the Chair is responsible for stepping in and addressing it. That’s part of the role. 

So your Chair should have spoken up, but didn’t. What happens then? Any board director could have - should have! - spoken up. Even something as simple as, “That’s not appropriate,” could have shifted how this moment unfolded. It might have made it easier to regroup, acknowledge the incident and address the harm that occurred.

Because here’s the thing: everyone around the board table holds equal power and equal accountability. But too often, directors abdicate all leadership to the Chair, sitting in awkward silence when something goes awry. 

And while I can empathize with the challenges that come with speaking up in a difficult moment - recognizing that many people experience freeze responses when yelling is involved - I believe that when occupying leadership roles, we have a responsibility to act like leaders, no matter how difficult that might be. Leaders don’t get to be silent bystanders; leaders speak up. 

So yes, it sucks that the Chair did nothing. But it’s also really disappointing - and I imagine, for you, pretty distressing - that no one else said anything either.

It’s Never Too Late to Say Sorry! Why Follow-up Matters After Inappropriate Behaviour.

Ideally, the ED would have followed up with an apology. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt for a second: maybe it was a stressful moment. Maybe they were under a ton of pressure. Maybe something else was going on that you weren’t aware of. If this was a one-time misstep - a moment of poor judgement that was out of character - they should have taken responsibility and made it right. Because sometimes people screw up. But if they own it, make amends, and work to rebuild trust, we can move forward.

But if there was no apology, that’s just as concerning as the incident itself. Because then I start to wonder: if your ED is willing to treat a board member like this in public, how are they treating staff? Volunteers? Program participants?

This was a horrible experience for you personally, but it’s also a massive red flag for the organization. And even if the board let it slide in the moment (which they absolutely should not have), they should have followed up afterward to talk about what happened, and figure out whether this was part of a larger pattern. But I’m willing to bet that they didn’t. And I say that with some confidence because your story reflects two dynamics I see over and over again in nonprofit boards: conflict avoidance and a lack of accountability systems.

Conflict Avoidance + No Accountability = Trouble

If you read this newsletter regularly, you already know I talk about conflict avoidance a lot. I have found that it’s one of the most common, and most damaging dynamics in nonprofit governance. So many boards have a pathological reluctance to deal with conflict! And I’m always amazed by the lengths boards will go to avoid having tough conversations (including spending thousands of dollars on governance consulting - ask me how I know).

There are a lot of reasons why boards shy away from conflict, but one big factor is the absence of clear accountability structures. Because if you don’t have reasonable, transparent systems for holding people accountable, it becomes much harder to name and address bad behaviour when it happens. And when conflict avoidance and lack of accountability come together? That’s when small governance issues start snowballing into major problems.

Most Governance Crises Start Small (And Then Grow Out of Control)

A lot of governance problems begin as something minor. Think of it like a scrape on the knee. Everyone feels the sting. There might be a collective wince. But nobody deals with it, because addressing it feels more painful than the injury itself. 

And hey, it’s just a little scrape, right? It’ll probably go away on its own.

But if you ignore it long enough, even a small scrape can become infected.

I’ve seen boards ignore small issues until they fester into full-blown organizational crises. And almost every time, it comes back to the same thing: nobody wanted to talk about the “small thing” when it happened. So more “small things” happen. And those get ignored too. And eventually? You’ve got a toxic culture that’s really, really hard to fix. Don’t be that board!

How to Design for Accountability in Your Governance

So what does it look like to actually build accountability into your governance practice? First, you need to get better at naming conflict when it happens. That means cultivating the courage, trust, and shared leadership needed to have real conversations when things go sideways.

Then, you need the right infrastructure; reasonable, values-aligned mechanisms that allow you to intervene early and constructively when inappropriate behaviour occurs.

Here are a few places where you can strengthen your governance accountability systems:

• Clear Expectations: Everyone should know what respectful behaviour looks like and what happens when expectations aren’t met. This usually starts with a Code of Conduct and other core policies.
• Whistleblower Policy: People need a clear, safe way to raise serious concerns involving unethical, illegal, or harmful conduct, without fear of reprisal.
• Internal Conflict and Complaints Process: You also need a consistent and constructive process for addressing less ‘serious’ internal conflicts. Make sure it includes a way to escalate serious concerns to the board, while still keeping the board out of day-to-day staff dynamics.
• Culture & Feedback Surveys: At least once a year, give staff, volunteers, program users, and partners a chance to offer honest feedback about the organization’s culture, leadership, and impact. This is useful for collective learning, and it also helps boards stay informed.
• Executive Performance Management System: Boards need a structured, meaningful way to evaluate their ED, based on clear expectations, strategic alignment, and reasonable monitoring. This should include a ‘Performance Improvement Process’ for addressing concerns when the ED’s performance or behaviour doesn’t meet the mark.
• Reflective Board Evaluation: If the board wants to hold others accountable, it has to be able to hold itself accountable too. That means regular board self-evaluations to reflect on how you’re showing up as leaders, and this should include some reflection on how you handle conflict when it arises.

These structures won’t prevent every problem, but they’ll help ensure that your board is equipped to deal with problems when they happen, in a constructive way.

Big Takeaways

• It’s never okay to be yelled at. Volunteer roles shouldn't come at the cost of your dignity.
  
  
• Every board director shares equal power and equal responsibility. If the Chair doesn’t step up, someone else on the board can (and should). 
  
  
• Talk about the hard stuff! The longer your board avoids a tough conversation, the worse the consequences become. Name it. Deal with it. Move forward.