Stewardship at Leadership Santa Barbara County (leadsb.org)

I'm going to muddle along with this a bit longer.  I chair the Board of a Leadership Training Non-Profit called Leadership Santa Barbara County.  The chair before me was a truly patriarchal leader.  He micromanaged decisions made by committee and refused to delegate work even when board members offered. 

When I took over the chairpersonship I felt as a matter of preserving the organization and myself that I needed to allow my team to make decisions for the good of the organization, and to allow them to grow their responsibility.  I chose partnership over patriarchy, I chose empowerment over dependency, and I chose service over self-interest.  I see a lot of "I"s in that sentence, and I'm sure you do too.  I let go of caretaking and control, deliberatively and openly.  I hoped my colleagues would feel empowered.  As you can imagine, these choices have been met by many board members choosing not to take responsibility.  And I still find myself central to the institution.  

We held a retreat last summer where the board envisioned on a common goal, and committed to act with purpose toward achieving that goal, even if they did not serve on the particular committee to which that task would usually fall, and even in a consensual group process (instead of the leadership choices I chose to make with full transparency) there has been reluctance by at least half of the board to lift a hand to help in a meaningful way.

I feel frustrated.  The people who took on service roles are tired and frustrated that their colleagues are "not stepping up."  Our governance committee is recruiting Board members.  I feel challenged to write the job announcement:  wanted, Leadership Alumni driven to accept accountability....  More thoughts welcome.