Some Boards don’t like to vote at all, but voting has its place. Sometimes it’s useful as a temperature check during a difficult conversation. But if your Chair is regularly turning to the casting vote to reach agreement, then I’d suggest there’s something amiss with your Board leadership.
I rarely see a casting vote used. It is designed as a procedural safeguard, a last resort when Boards are genuinely stuck. But I recently heard about a Chair who used their casting vote twice in one meeting.
Twice.
That means that the Board was equally divided on two issues that were important enough to vote on, and the Chair pushed it through by voting twice…twice. From what I heard, there was little to no discussion before this vote was pushed through. This was apparently because the Chair knew they had the votes to ‘win’.
That, my friends, is a failure of Board leadership.
The job of a Chair is not to push a decision through. It is to enable the Board to explore complexity, navigate disagreement, and reach an agreed view.
This does not always mean full consensus. Some issues are too complex or sensitive for that. But it should mean that the Board has had a real conversation, has listened to each other, and can stand behind the outcome, together.
Ideally, a Chair shouldn’t even express their view until everyone else has. (I recall one Chair I worked with who initiated every discussion with an intense and prolonged explanation of what she wanted and why that is what would happen- it was rare that anyone disagreed. She was NOT an effective Chair…).
When a Board is split 50–50 and the Chair uses a casting vote on a final decision, something deeper has usually gone wrong. It reflects an absence of trust, a lack of shared purpose, or an unwillingness to sit with discomfort and discussion. Sometimes it reveals that the Board has not done the necessary work. This might involve clarifying the decision, surfacing the real risks, or exploring values and implications, alternatives and ideas.
Voting is often seen as a tidy way to reach a conclusion. But, if you get 50/50, it means it’s time to go back to the discussion (unless you’ve had it over and over again and you really can’t resolve it – which is extremely rare).
Used too early to reach a conclusion, it’s a shortcut that shuts down debate. And when the Chair ends up using a casting vote, it means the shortcut has turned into a dead end.
Voting is not inherently democratic if the process that leads up to it is flawed.
When is a casting vote not a problem?
In rare, time-bound decisions where the Board has debated fully, differences have been explored in good faith, and everyone accepts that the Chair must make a call. For example, when facing a deadline for legal or regulatory compliance, or agreeing a short-term course of action after all other routes have been exhausted. Even then, a good Chair will read the room and understand whether using the casting vote will resolve matters or inflame them.
The real problem is not the mechanism itself. It is when the Chair reaches for it as a substitute for leadership rather than as a last resort.
So what should Chairs do instead?
- Slow things down. The answer is not to force a vote but to pause and reflect. What needs to be better understood? Have you created space for idea generation or a conversation about what the real barriers are?
- Hold space for disagreement. Debate is not the enemy – it’s a sign that people care about the cause more than they care about the social cost of difficult discussions. The key is whether the Chair can support the Board through that discomfort. Remember, good Boards actively disagree with each other.
- Reframe the issue. Is the Board debating surface-level decisions when the real concern lies elsewhere? What assumptions are going unexamined?
- Name what is happening. A Chair who can say, “We are not aligned, and that tells me we need to do more thinking together,” is demonstrating leadership.
- Remember that there is no ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ for Trustees. The people who win and lose in the decisions the Board makes are the service users and the staff. If you feel like YOU are winning or losing, it might be time to step away entirely, or at least hand over the Chair role. Perhaps you could consider a rotating Chair position, or remove the casting vote power from your constitution?
Using a casting vote once might be a necessary evil. Using it regularly, or even twice in a single meeting, is a red flag. It suggests the Board is not functioning as a team. It suggests the Chair is asserting authority rather than enabling collective judgement. In the For Impact sector, the Chair has no other powers beyond a casting vote than any other Trustee. It is a collective body that must make decisions together.
A decision imposed by a casting vote may look efficient, but it can fracture relationships, sow mistrust, and erode long-term confidence.
If you are a Chair and find yourself reaching for the casting vote, ask yourself: what am I avoiding here? What conversation are we failing to have? And what kind of Board culture am I building?
Let’s get into the habit of expecting more from our Chairs. It is a role with considerable power and influence, and therefore we need accountability. For starters, let’s include the use of casting votes into how we judge our Chairs.