How does the director’s position as “executive officer” define the director’s role and his or her relationship to the social serv ices board?

According to John Carver, author of Boards That Make a Difference, the chief executive officer of the governing board of a public or nonprofit agency is the highest-level agency employee through whom all upwardly accumulating accountability flows. A CEO is not only responsible for his or her own job performance, but is also directly and ultimately accountable to the board for the agency’s performance in achieving its purposes, goals, or objectives. The CEO is accountable for the entire product and behavior of the agency. Carver claims: The job of the CEO is “to work whatever magic it takes” to ensure that the agency’s purposes, goals, or objectives are achieved through prudent and ethical means.
According to Carver, the board’s relationship with its CEO must be based on the accountability of the director’s position—not the director’s responsibility for his or her own individual job performance. The board’s relationship with the director should focus on the director’s overall accountability for the agency’s performance—not the specific job-related responsibilities of his or her position or his or her performance of those responsibilities. The CEO’s job performance is merely a means to the end of the agency’s overall performance.
The CEO of a board is the board’s only employee and serves as a bridge between the board and the agency’s staff. This does not mean that there is never any direct contact or communication between board members and the agency’s staff. But it does mean that the board’s policies are implemented through the board’s CEO; that the board does not go over the CEO’s head or behind the CEO’s back in dealing with agency staff; and that the CEO is responsible for the supervision of, and is the only person who is ultimately accountable to the board for the performance of the agency and the agency’s staff.