Why are so many chief staff officers so afraid of their Board of Directors? Because their Boards are difficult to work with and the decisions they make are so bad. Recent research and conversations with CEO friends in association management highlight the astonishing amount of time and energy devoted to convincing, navigating or just plain avoiding bad Board members. We Spend Too Much Time on Governance to Have Bad Boards Much of modern day association executive leadership is focused on preparing and using volunteer leaders to inform decisions. Recent data from Looking Forward 2018, Association Laboratory’s global environmental scan of the association environment, indicated that 69% of chief staff officers identified governance and volunteer management as one of their primary responsibilities. With so much time spent on governance and, specifically, the Board of Directors, why don’t our volunteer leaders do a better job?  At what point is a bad