State of the Boardroom: When Two People Are Doing the Work of Five

Five names appear on the board roster. Two people read the statutes, prepare for meetings, follow the projects, answer the difficult emails, talk to professionals, and make sure decisions actually get carried out. The other three attend meetings and vote. On paper, that is a five-member board. In practice, what is it?

This is one of the less visible weaknesses of volunteer governance. A board may have every seat filled and still depend heavily on one or two people to keep the organization moving. The meetings happen. The bills get paid. Decisions are made. But the workload underneath those decisions may be anything but evenly shared.

Filling the seats is only the beginning

Recruitment is hard in many communities. A 2026 Foundation for Community Association Research survey of 587 respondents across 39 states found that 20 percent reported at least one board vacancy or vacancies that varied over time. Respondents also identified time demands and burnout as reasons directors leave. The survey strongly emphasized the value of board training and education in improving engagement and effectiveness, and it noted a recurring problem: some directors remain in office because too few other homeowners are willing to step forward.

That helps explain why associations are often relieved when anyone volunteers.
But a filled seat is not necessarily an active seat. Some directors arrive ready to learn. Others discover that the work is more demanding than expected. And some never move much beyond attending meetings and voting.

Research on HOA governance has found that community associations often rely on inexperienced volunteers who may not initially have the skills needed for the responsibilities they inherit. Anthony Bennett’s work on HOA board competencies focuses on that gap and on the need for stronger board capability. The harder problem begins when inexperience is paired with little interest in learning. A director does not need to become a lawyer or accountant. But directors do need enough understanding of the issues before them to exercise independent judgment. If the same two people are always researching the law, following the finances, preparing the background, and explaining everything to everyone else, the imbalance is no longer just about workload. It begins to affect how the board governs.

A board is supposed to be more than several votes

A board is a collective governing body, and in that sense it should operate as a flat hierarchy. Five directors have five equal votes. As Condo Connection puts it, directors are peers, with equal voices, equal votes, and shared responsibility for the board’s decisions.

Different assignments make sense. Silos do not. The treasurer may take the lead on finances, the secretary on records, and the president on meetings, but none of those areas belongs to one person. When assignments become territory, a useful division of labor starts working against the board.

The same is true when the work itself becomes concentrated. If two directors do most of the research and the other three mostly react to their summaries, the board may still function formally, but its decision-making is thinner. Often nobody planned it that way. One person understands the budget, another follows legislation, someone else answers the difficult emails. The reliable people keep picking up the next project because the work needs to get done.

Do that long enough, and an imbalance becomes the way the board works. Over time, that pattern becomes normal.

The quiet cost of an uneven board

An association can operate this way for years. What eventually shows up is not necessarily a crisis. It is fragility. The active directors burn out. Other directors become increasingly dependent on them. Knowledge becomes concentrated in a few people. Succession becomes difficult because nobody else has learned enough of the work to step in easily. And systems that should belong to the association begin to live inside personal email accounts, individual spreadsheets, and the memories of whoever has been carrying the load. Then one of those people leaves. Suddenly everyone discovers how much of the organization depended on someone who was never supposed to be indispensable.

A healthy board should be able to survive the departure of any one director. That is much harder when most of the work and institutional knowledge sit with one or two people.

Sometimes recruitment creates the problem

Boards often recruit by making service sound easier than it is.

“It is only one meeting a month.”

“We just need one more person.”

“You won't have to do much.”

That may solve the immediate problem of an empty seat. It can create another one later. Prospective directors deserve a realistic picture of the job. There will be emails. There will be documents to read. Some of them will be dull. There will be decisions where nobody is entirely happy with the result. There may be statutes or governing documents that need to be understood before anyone votes. Not everyone will want that. That is not a character flaw.

Condo Connection makes a similar point in its volunteer guidance: having the time and desire to serve is not the same as having the judgment and temperament to serve well, and accepting whoever raises a hand may sometimes be unavoidable but is not ideal. There is something to be said for knowing that before the election rather than discovering it six months later.

Training helps, but participation still matters

Volunteer governance has its own arithmetic. If a community already struggles to persuade five people to serve, adding classes, testing, or certification may shrink the pool further.

A more practical answer may be orientation rather than credentialing. Give new directors a short introduction to the association, its finances, governing documents, current projects, and major legal responsibilities. Point them toward reliable resources. Keep useful records so the next director does not start from zero. Make asking questions normal. The goal is not to turn neighbors into professional managers. It is to give them enough information to make responsible decisions.

Boards will never divide the work evenly. One director may have more time. Another may understand financial reports. Someone else may be better with contractors, writing, or long-term planning. That is normal. What matters is whether every director is participating enough to govern: reading the material, asking questions, understanding the major issues, and taking responsibility for something beyond showing up to vote.

A five-person board does not need five experts. But it should be more than two people doing the work and five people casting the votes.

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