On Recruiting Leaders
Every few months a discussion pops up on the ASAE Executive Section listserve about how to get young people onto the Board. Some even consider creating a permanent slot for a single young leader to occupy.
This really misses the point entirely. This is not a structural governance problem. It is a recruitment problem.
A Board that is heavily loaded with people who have been around the association for decades has failed to recruit new blood. Creating a token slot for a young person will get you just that: a person who will be discounted from the start because they are a token to diversity. Fundamentally changing your recruitment practices to identify leadership candidates throughout the membership will provide a more diverse array of candidates and most likely find some leaders you would never have known about.
To get better leaders you need to become a better recruiter.
I was just reflecting on this commentary for a post on young people as board members (particularly thinking about youth-focussed organisations where the definition of young might be