Effective governance hinges on a strong partnership between the board and the CEO. The Board should only hire and fire one employee of the organization, the CEO.
With that said, the Board will typically interact with staff, especially the senior leadership of the organization. Most often this happens through committee work. For example, the CFO or Business Manager may work closely with the Finance Committee and the Development Committee will have a lot of interaction with the Development Director.
We are often asked the appropriate role of the board in making senior level hires. Ultimately it is the CEO's hire, and they should have complete ownership of the scope of the position, salary, and qualifications they are looking for. Remember the governance-management rule of thumb is that the board focuses on results, and the CEO focuses on the means to get to the results. Building the core team is a primary means to get to the results.
But, in many instances, the Board may have more experience in a particular area than the CEO. For example, the CEO may be a strong instructional lead, but have a steeper learning curve on financial oversight, but you have a very strong Treasurer/Chair of the Finance Committee on the board. In this case, the CEO would be wise to engage the Treasurer in the process. They should ask them where to post the position, get their feedback on the job posting itself, and ask them to assist in some of the screening of the candidates. If this position will work very closely with the Treasurer/Finance committee as a courtesy to both the board and the final candidates you may want to include them in the final rounds of interviewing.
If/when it feels appropriate to include board members in this type of hiring, make sure to spell out the parameters of their involvement and the ground rules in the beginning.
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