It was a tumultuous week for the Southern Baptist Convention as an attempt was made to oust Brent Leatherwood from his post as head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Brent Leatherwood is a liberal activist in charge of the largest Protestant denomination’s lobbying arm. Yet the attempt to oust Leatherwood backfired as Kevin Smith, the chair of the ERLC Trustee executive committee was made to resign. One pastor gives a plausible explanation for what could have happened behind closed doors in the ERLC.
David Mitzenmacher is a Southern Baptist pastor and is recognizable as one of the good guys from this past convention. Here is what he has to say given his corporate experience.
The mechanics of how CEO exits typically work can help make sense of what may have happened at the ERLC. I’ll try to summarize in this. (Prior to full-time ministry, I was a corporate executive. I’ve seen several CEO exits, and because my roles included client comms, I was often in the inner circle of who knew what.)
When a board decides it’s time for the CEO to go, the whole thing has to be managed very carefully. There are some widely understood norms that everyone involved is supposed to operate from.
One of those norms – it is almost always better for everyone if the CEO resigns rather than being fired. This means that when a BOD loses confidence in the CEO, the call is normally, “We think you should step down,” rather than, “You are fired.”
There are two reasons. First, a CEO being fired is very hard on an organization’s employees, customers, partners, and shareholders. A firing raises questions about the organization’s past, present, and future, whereas a properly managed resignation is about starting the next chapter.
Boards know this, so they prefer asking for a resignation whenever possible. CEOs know this, too. Good CEOs recognize that leadership often involves setting aside one’s own rights to do what is best for the organization and its stakeholders.
Thus, it is generally the case that both the BOD and the CEO understand that a CEO resigning is better for the organization than the CEO being fired.
The second reason: allowing the CEO the opportunity to resign is understood to be the right and decent way to treat them. Asking for a resignation is a kindness being offered by a board that has lost faith in the CEO’s leadership as an expression of gratitude for their past service to the organization.
Asking for a resignation allows the CEO to help determine the messaging, to be involved in working through the transition agreement, and to have the best opportunity to land their next job.
And, perhaps most importantly, asking for a resignation allows the CEO to save face with their family, friends, and colleagues.
It is common (especially with smaller orgs) for the whole thing to play out something like this:
There will be a series of calls (rarely officially called meetings) where the board agrees that the CEO should be asked to step down. They don’t vote to fire him- that would be getting ahead of themselves. The whole point is to avoid such an action.
Rather, the board will agree that the chairman should let the CEO know that he’s lost the board’s confidence and that it is best for everyone if he steps down.
As you might imagine, this puts the chairman in a delicate situation. He’s is trusting that the CEO understands that the request to step down is (1) an act of decency, allowing him to save face, and (2) a way of protecting the organization from the drama of a firing.
But if the CEO says, “No. I’m not going anywhere. You are going to have to fire me” – well, if that’s not a contingency that the board planned for, the wheels can quickly spin off the whole thing.
The board now finds itself in a perilous situation. The CEO has been told that he has lost the board’s confidence, and by refusing to step down, he signals that he is going to fight.
As long as he remains CEO, he can leverage his position to direct the organization’s resources to wage a battle against the board—which is just about the most disruptive thing that can happen within an organization.
So the chairman, having heard that the CEO is refusing to step down, finds himself in a pickle – especially if this contingency wasn’t planned for. Risk an immediate start to an ugly battle, or fire the CEO without an official board vote.
The chairman is very exposed. For example, if the fired CEO starts lobbying friendly media contacts and large sources of income (clients, investors, benefactors), and those people start putting pressure on the BOD – well, the chairman can quickly find himself hung out to dry.
The long and short of this theory is that the board wanted Brent Leatherwood out. And when Brent Leatherwood refused, Kevin Smith chose to act upon the ultimatum and was left hung out to dry.
It’s a fascinating theory that provides insights into the inner workings of the SBC, taken from secular work experience. And while this is still speculative, it’s heavily implied that Leatherwood’s resignation was asked for and thus he had his allies ready to rally behind him.
One Response
so, the sbc middle management and key big donors are solid gone