Balance of Power: Surviving a Rogue Trustee
Exceptional and dedicated community leaders serve as trustees on
boards of education and on public boards of all kinds. The overwhelming
majority of these trustees, elected or appointed, serve for the greater
good, bringing their wisdom and experience to bear on the key challenges
their boards face.
Occasionally, a trustee pursues a path other than serving for the
greater good, and sometimes that trustee becomes a special challenge, a
rogue, who runs roughshod over the norms and standards expected of
community leaders and concerned citizens. These are not just troublesome
trustees, or mavericks, or reformer trustees; these are more extreme
cases of trustees who act as rogues as the term is used to identify
rogue elephants, rogue cops, or rogue states. The gauge that marks their
difference from troublesome trustees is the enormous damage they do;
they have major impact disproportionate to their numbers on public
boards.
A new study of rogue trustees in the community college sector
provides information on what has been a closet issue in
education—a challenge that presidents whisper about among
themselves but seldom discuss in public. Fifty-nine community college
presidents in 16 states participated in interviews or provided written
responses to questions about the behaviors, motivations, and damage of
rogue trustees, as well as strategies for dealing with them.
What Defines a Rogue?
The following description was used to help presidents identify whether
or not they had ever experienced a rogue trustee:
Rogue trustees run roughshod over the norms and standards of
behavior expected of public officials appointed or elected to office.
They tend to trample over the ideas and cautions of the CEO, the trustee
chair, and member trustees. They place their own interests over the
interests of the college. They violate written and unwritten codes of
conduct. They often make inappropriate alliances with faculty and staff
and other trustees. They recommend and support policies that are not in
the best interests of the institution. They consume an inordinate amount
of staff and meeting time. They know how to get attention, appeal to the
base elements in others, and manipulate individuals and situations to
their advantage. . . .
Excerpted from the winter 2010 issue of The Presidency.
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| Excerpt Career Paths The Presidency winter 2010 |
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