In a conversation recently with someone whose presidency and mine overlapped (1992–2003), we talked about how even though we worked 24-7 and lost a fair amount of sleep, we mainly loved what we did and even had lots of fun doing it. That is not what I am hearing today from presidents I know, nearly all of whom use language like “I’m worn out” and “I can’t wait to retire.” It is therefore not surprising that the average presidential tenure, according to a recent American Council on Education survey, has decreased significantly in recent years (from 8.5 years to 5.9).

As I have often learned during my 18 years as a higher ed consultant, short presidential tenures take a toll on their institutions. Even in the best of circumstances, presidential transitions are time-consuming. Searches frequently take nine or more months, during which time planning and even implementation of previously approved plans often get put on hold. Departing presidents are frequently viewed as lame ducks, while interim presidents are often seen as placeholders, whose presence similarly delays institutional progress.

Then, too, during the first year of a new presidency, campus communities generally are trying to decide if the new president is trustworthy and capable. If the previous president left under negative circumstances, people on campus are likely to be especially skittish about new leadership. Moreover, many new presidents are so focused on learning about the institution and its people that they defer important decisions until their second year.

That used to make things difficult; now in these fraught times for higher education, it can be catastrophic.

Successful presidents simultaneously serve a variety of different groups (students, faculty, staff, alumni, the community, donors and the board), many of whom have conflicting interests and concerns. As I tell presidents I coach, their board has the responsibility to hire and fire them, so their board is inevitably their most important constituency.

Given the array and complexity of presidential responsibilities, many of which require confidentiality, it’s not surprising that a campus community doesn’t know all the ins and outs of how their presidents spend their time and the issues with which they deal. Indeed, on most campuses and even for some board members, the issues presidents must contend with are a black box.

In this context, the president’s connection to the board is typically opaque to the broader campus community. Indeed, as is also true for most marriages, it’s almost impossible for those not in the relationship to know what really happens inside it. And of course, if a board loses confidence in the president, the result is a divorce in which the president is the one who leaves. (Two personal confessions come to mind in this regard: First, as a former Faulkner scholar, I am mindful of the importance of narrative, am alert to unreliable narrators and am always aware that history, culture and memory affect perception. And second, despite the fact that I have never taken a course in clinical psychology, I sometimes believe that clients with unhealthy board-president relationships may need a marriage counselor in addition to a higher ed consultant.)

In any case, when the president-chair relationship is troubled, it is almost always presidents who find themselves on shaky ground. And although I am happy to say that the majority of president-chair relationships that I have observed are positive, I have been recently observed what seems to be an uptick in the souring of such relationships.

Specifically, a dozen presidents—at least half of whom were in a second contract—have described their relationship with their chair as deeply problematic. In a number of these instances, I should stress, the chair who was in place when the president was hired has rotated out of that position and the new chair is for various reasons less invested in the president’s success. (Note: In the interest of confidentiality, none of my examples derive from clients with whom I have begun to work in the last year. In fact, a number of these examples come from institutions with which I’ve not had a consulting relationship but where I know well the president and/or the chair.)

The most common complaint I hear is from presidents who characterize their chair as a micromanager who is inappropriately engaged in operational decisions—despite the fact that in every institution I know, board bylaws call for the trustees to delegate operational responsibility to the president. As a result, these boards often spend their time in the proverbial weeds rather than focusing on their primary fiduciary responsibility and their responsibilities for strategy and policies.

I also have heard about chairs who have—without presidential knowledge much less involvement—talked directly with faculty and staff (and sometimes even students), ignoring the best practice that all trustees, including the chair, who wish to interact with those on campus should work with and through the president or, if the president so specifies, the board secretary. (The exception to this is trustee committee chairs who have direct conversations about the work of their committee with their administrative liaison, typically a vice president. At the same time, in healthy institutions presidents are fully informed about and often participate in such conversations.)

Some examples:

• A chair at a research university crossed the boundary from governance into management by inappropriately meeting with individual faculty members without the president’s knowledge in his quest to gain support for his personal belief that the provost should be let go, even though he knew the president wished to retain the provost.
• The board chair at a liberal arts college met with individual faculty members without the president’s knowledge to dissuade them from addressing diversity or gender in their classes.
• The board chair at a small comprehensive college met with members of the campus community off-site to seek reasons to let the president go.

The first two presidents subsequently left the institution they were leading, dismayed that their chair was ignoring the fact that as president, they were the board’s only employee and that all other employees essentially work for the president. The third president ended up being fired, based on the chair’s conversations.

Why has this happened? My suspicion is that it is related to the coarsening of discourse generally and the growing partisanship in this country and beyond. Until roughly the last decade, I was struck by how much those of us in the academy—faculty, staff, administrators and trustees—truly placed a high value on civil discourse, with colleges and universities typically priding themselves on being places where people could disagree passionately but with mutual respect, or at least the appearance of that respect. But in recent years, this is no longer the case. Instead, as we are seeing, families and friends are torn apart by differing points of views. Congress, which was once a place where people argued fervently with those with whom they disagreed but then spent congenial social time together, is now similarly torn apart. And although colleges and universities ideally should not be the playground for partisan politics, that is no longer the case.

I believe that in this context, particularly at a time when so many colleges and universities are vulnerable (think for example about the enrollment cliff), the president-chair relationship is even more critical than ever. Presidents and boards, especially their chairs, are entrusted in different ways with the health and integrity—financial and academic—of the institutions they serve. Successful presidents and chairs both have a clear understanding of and respect for their differing roles and responsibilities. In the most successful of these relationships, chairs see themselves as the president’s strategic partner and presidents see the board as a strategic advantage to the institution.

But in those instances where the relationship is strained, entire communities of faculty, staff, students, alumni, donors and others are often negatively affected even if few if any of them are aware of this problematic leadership dynamic. Indeed, members of the campus community in these cases are like families and friends of those in a fragile marriage—they don’t know what’s really going on, but they know enough to be unsettled.

So what do we do about all of this? Although I know enough now to know that we aren’t likely to change the larger culture, I do recommend that college and university boards set aside time—certainly in new trustee orientation and at least once a year for the entire board in an executive session—to address the question of how trustees interact with one another and with the campuses that they have committed to serve. I further recommend that boards commit to a regular process by which they are reviewed. For example, if a board has retained an outside consultant to do a 360-degree review of the president, I suggest that they ask that same consultant to make recommendations about the board’s functioning, particularly in terms of its behavior in relation to the president and the senior leadership team. But most of all, I hope that trustees, who at their best are focused on the health and integrity of the institution, will understand how important it is that they model respect for others and the civil discourse that is necessary not only for board service but for the health of our larger society.