The Connection Between Board Governance and Burnout
I’m going to do something a bit different for this blog, which is to share additional information about two topics that I have written about previously, offer up additional resources on both, and connect them together - Board Governance and Burnout.
The first topic is the governance practices of Boards of Directors. If you have been reading my blogs, you will know that I regularly write about the responsibilities of Boards of Directors. I have done so in most of my blogs because Boards have the ultimate responsibility for organizational effectiveness. And, I devoted the whole of my November 24, 2020 blog to unpacking the Top 10 Roles and Responsibilities of Boards in my blog titled: What Do Boards Do Anyhow?
I was heartened by the feedback that I received about this blog, and as a result, I had the opportunity to give a 90-minute webinar about these Top 10 Roles and Responsibilities. While the webinar was developed for farmed animal sanctuaries in Canada and the United States, the information applies to all charitable organizations in our Movement whether you engage in food advocacy, grassroots advocacy, undercover investigations, legal advocacy, or any other form of animal protection work - whether in Canada or the United States. The link to the webinar, which includes closed captioning, can be found on the website for The Open Sanctuary Project, and also includes some great resources regarding board governance.
In addition, the webinar included a brief discussion about the requirement, in the United States, for 501c3 organizations to engage in State registrations for fundraising. While this topic was not covered in the webinar, information was immediately included thereafter and can be found on The Open Sanctuary website.
Boards of Directors, as part of their roles and responsibilities, must support the executive director in managing and leading the employees. And, a critical part of this is being able to identify and mitigate burnout. In a recent blog that I wrote for Faunalytics, I discussed what burnout means and I explored the three-dimensional construct, called the ‘three experiences’ of burnout which includes emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy. I also introduced a tool called the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the ‘gold standard’ in measuring burnout, comprising sixteen statements which are intended to measure a person’s response to the three experiences that take place within the six domains of workplaces.
These six domains are:
(a) workload, particularly challenging when emotional work is done;
(b) control, particularly when the individual does not have the tools to perform the job effectively or lacks authority to do so;
(c) reward, or a lack of recognition for work done;
(d) community, triggered by a lack of positive connections with others;
(e) fairness, measured by mutual respect; and
(f) values, when there is conflict between the work and an individual’s core values.
And, importantly, I shared a summary of a review of forty-one scholarly articles regarding burnout in our Movement and in other social justice movements, together with suggestions for preventing and mitigating burnout.
Please visit the Faunalytics website to read the entire blog on burnout.
We all need to focus on ensuring that workplaces are healthy because engaged employees (the opposite of burned out employees) are employees who can do their best work possible for animals.
I want to help to empower you to be the best activist you can be. Please reach out with any questions and I’ll try to answer them in future blogs, anonymously of course!
Always for the Animals,
Krista
The following information is provided for general information purposes only. It is not intended to provide legal advice or opinions of any kind. No one should act, or refrain from acting, based solely upon the materials provided on this website, any hypertext links or other general information without first seeking appropriate legal or other professional advice.
The intention of this blog is to promote the longevity and engagement level of the ACTivist community within the Animal Advocacy Movement (AAM). The majority of the advice will be geared towards employees within the AAM in Canada and the United States, but may be applicable to other countries. All information provided assumes that the employee works within a non-unionized environment.
Krista is the Executive Director of For The Greater Good where she consults with animal protection organizations across North America on matters of organizational development and governance. In addition to holding five degrees and designations in human resources, including a master’s degree in organizational development and leadership, she is pursuing her doctorate focused on the employment experiences of animal rights activists in Canada and the United States. Krista first joined the Animal Advocacy Movement as the VP of Mercy For Animals in Canada where she led twelve undercover investigations into factory farms and slaughterhouses. Krista also served as the President of the Board for Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary for over five years, also now serves on several other Boards including One Protest, The Rancher Advocacy Program, Egg-Truth, and Dairy-Truth. Krista is also a member of Womxn Funders in Animal Rights. Krista is a peer reviewer for the Journal of Critical Animal Studies. Prior to joining the Movement, Krista founded a boutique employment and labour law firm in Toronto where she consulted to employers across Canada and the U.S. for a decade, and before that she spent fifteen years in human resources including as the Vice President of HR for one of the largest software companies in the world.