Brittany Quinn, Deputy Director, Healthcare Hospitality Network

According to Nonprofit Leadership Lab, highly effective board chairs are critical to having a robust, strategic, and effective nonprofit organization. Having a five-star board chair is the root of the health and vibrancy of a nonprofit organization.

Nonprofit Quarterly’s Yvonne Harrison conducted a comprehensive research study that identified the personal qualities of exception board chairs. Their study identified five clusters of effective board chair leadership characteristics:

One area that this study cited was the following characteristics of effective leaders, which included:

• Being goal directed
• Having emotional maturity, self-, and social awareness (also known as “emotional intelligence or EI”)
• Being creative, flexible, and persistent
• Being committed and independent-minded and understanding the big picture; being compassionate and proactive (also known as “spiritual intelligence”)

The Healthcare Hospitality Network (HHN) has had the privilege of being led by an exceptional board chair, Melissa Thompson, who has all five of the qualities. Melissa not only has a high emotional intelligence (components include: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills), she recently led a professional training webinar on the topic. One enthusiastic attendee of the webinar noted that “This session is important for everyone to learn about EI. And Melissa has THAT!”.

Melissa chairs a motivated and engaged board of directors. This group includes several members who have taken on the enormous task of hosting an HHN National Conference (Sean Meyerhoffer, Janice Ross) or a Leadership Summit (Jan Weinstock). Our Vice President Michelle Isaacs and Neil Chace co-chair this year’s 2020 HHN National Conference in San Antonio this September.

We want to shine a light on the important and often overlooked work done by our dedicated Board of Directors. In the nonprofit world we know that there are myriad challenges – but having a supportive board at the core of an organization is crucial in overcoming those challenges and growing a sustainable and thriving association for our members.