Do you ever think about what you would want to happen in the flow of a contentious business meeting in which you were the chair?
Would you want full transparency with what was said and done, or would you prefer everything be held in confidence? Or maybe somewhere in between?
No matter what happened in the meeting, would you be tempted to gloss over everything and put a positive spin on it or find a way to share the reality of the situation with love and grace?
Some decisions require discussions on sensitive, personal or legal information that most everyone agrees shouldn’t be done publicly.
Determining what and when to share
However, sometimes executive sessions or secret meetings are used so those involved can talk straight up with each other without fear of their concerns or words being reported out. Closed meetings also are sometimes used to share difficult news with the group and the leaders prefer keeping the news as privileged information.
I can see and understand both sides of this debate if a complete, appropriate and fair report is made following such meetings. What’s troubling is when important information is purposefully hidden.
What’s even more troubling is when stakeholders are not properly informed along the way, especially when a serious issue is at hand.
Still, the responsibilities of leadership at various levels of an organization are heavy and, many times, difficult to navigate. Each seat on the trustee board represents a real person with a real family and a real life. Many are likely going through something bigger than what’s taking place in that meeting at that moment.
Stepping into others’ shoes
For the vast majority of trustees, they truly are trying to do their best with what they’ve been tasked to do and within the scope of their understanding of what that means.
Have you ever thought about how trustees are selected to serve on national entity boards? What if you were asked to be a trustee on the SBC Executive Committee?
How much do you know about it? Would you feel confident in helping make business decisions related to the entire convention by serving on its board?
We put together a piece to help provide some insight into the Executive Committee (click here to read it). But even armed with that information, understanding the full extent of the work takes time and experience.
And sometimes trustees are thrust into intense situations without the benefit of growing into the position through time and experience. Pulling from their other work and ministry experiences helps, but attempting to reconcile those experiences with the many levels involved in understanding Baptist polity can be overwhelming.
What qualifications should be required?
In recent years, a new EC trustee shared with the group how much she had to learn because until she was asked to serve on the board, she did not know her church was Southern Baptist. She has proven to be a dedicated member of the board, even earning a leadership role, but her comment during her first meeting struck me.
Could some of the confusion that surfaces within entity boards come from a lack of understanding by members? Is it possible staff and/or board leaders could take advantage of that lack of knowledge? Is it possible it has already happened at some points through the years?
Trustees aren’t tasked with running the day-to-day operations of the entities supported by Southern Baptists, but they are responsible for keeping them accountable to their purpose and ministry assignments.
What qualifications do you think should be required to serve as a trustee?
Complete coverage from the May 1 SBC EC meeting and discussions surrounding recent trustee decisions can be found here:
