The Management Committee and the Chief Officer

The Management Committee and the Chief Officer

The roles of the Management Committee and the organisation’s Chief Officer (also known as the Director, Manager, Co-ordinator etc) are interdependent:

• The Management Committee depends on the Chief Officer to exercise leadership by building a successful team of staff and volunteers, by helping the Management Committee use their time most efficiently, and by acting as a primary source of information.
  
  
• The Chief Officer depends on the Management Committee to provide direction and to make sound decisions, for example, an organisational policies, strategic plans and how best the organisation can work towards its mission and purpose.

Therefore, it is essential that the Management Committee and the Chief Officer understand their role and boundaries, and demonstrate respect for each other’s position and powers.

Examples of Management Committee behaviours that hinder the relationship:

• members who don’t understand the true financial condition of the organisation (e.g. they cannot interpret financial statements, fail to attend meetings, think they don’t need to know);
• members who don’t understand their role or responsibilities (e.g. there are no written role descriptions, no induction is provided);
• no support or appraisal provided for the Chief Officer
• Developing inappropriate relationships with individual staff members
• interferring with the day-to-day management
• not holding the chief officer effectively accountable

Examples of Chief Officer behaviours that hinder the relationship:

• withholding important information (e.g. debt, financial statements);
• making decisions outside delegated authority;
• entering into service delivery contracts without Management Committee knowledge;
• submitting funding applications without Management Committee knowledge.
• developing inappropriate close relationships with individual committee members