Holding Your Friends Accountable

A Viewpoint on Member Behavior, Standards, and the Reality of Club Governance

One of the most difficult responsibilities in private club leadership has nothing to do with strategy, capital planning, or operations. It is much more personal than that. It is the moment when a board member is asked to hold another member accountable, often someone they know, respect, and in many cases, consider a friend.

It is easy to talk about rules in the abstract. It is much harder to enforce them when there is history, relationships, and social dynamics involved. That is where governance either holds or breaks.

I have seen this up close. A few years ago, I served on the board of a school. In many ways, the dynamics were similar to a private club. You have a passionate membership, strong opinions, and a shared belief in the mission. Our board chair was thoughtful, well intentioned, and committed to doing things the right way. He met regularly with the head of school to ensure alignment, created space for board members to contribute based on their strengths, and was always looking to improve how we governed.

During that time, we worked through some real challenges. A significant lawsuit. A leadership transition to an interim head. A difficult harassment case. The board did a lot of things well, and the chair led with care and integrity through all of it. But we also had a situation that tested us in a different way.

One of our board members, someone I considered a friend and someone the chair considered a very close friend, was deeply committed to the school. He showed up. He cared. He wanted what was best. But on several occasions, he would lose his composure in meetings. He would get frustrated, raise his voice, and at times walk out entirely. It created tension. It impacted the room. And everyone knew it.

The board chair did his best to manage it, but at the end of the day, there was something else at play. He did not want to damage the friendship. None of us did. So we absorbed it. We worked around it. We told ourselves it was not that big of a deal. And if I am honest, we got that one wrong. Because when behavior goes unaddressed, it does not just affect the moment. It sets a precedent. It tells the rest of the group what is acceptable, even if no one says it out loud. That is where governance becomes real.

Great leaders don’t just set high standards. They stay with you when you fall short of them.

In the best run clubs, this is not left to chance. There is structure around it. Violations are reviewed without names whenever possible, allowing committees to evaluate behavior rather than individuals. There is a clear framework, often a rules or discipline matrix, that outlines both the violation and the consequence. Not because the club wants to be punitive, but because clarity removes emotion from the process and creates consistency over time.

Even more important than the rules themselves are the standards behind them. The clubs that navigate these situations well are clear about who they are. They define their non negotiables. They say out loud, this is who we are as a club, this is how we expect members to comport themselves, and this is what we are willing to protect. It is about responsibility. It is about stewardship. Reputation matters, and behavior is part of that.

I have seen this done exceptionally well. One club in particular stood out not because of what was written in their bylaws, although those were strong, but because of how those standards showed up in real life. They had a board code of conduct that made it clear the board would be held to an even higher standard than the membership. It sent a signal. This is not about power. It is about responsibility.

I remember watching a town hall meeting from that same club. The board had just presented extensive work on a major capital project. They walked through the background, the need, and multiple paths forward. It was time for questions, and while it was clear the membership was not yet aligned, something else was just as clear. Every member who stood up started the same way. They acknowledged the work. They expressed appreciation. Then they asked their question, even when they disagreed. There was a baseline level of respect that shaped the entire conversation.

That does not happen by accident. That is culture reinforced over time.

I have also seen the opposite. At another club, there was an attempt to define non negotiables in a very simple way. The idea was straightforward. We do not want one person negatively impacting another member’s experience. In plain terms, Don’t be a Jerk! It sounded good, but the real question is always the same. Will you enforce it?

At a town hall addressing a legitimate safety concern, tennis players being hit by golf balls, the conversation turned into a divide between groups. Golf versus tennis. Emotion replaced perspective. At one point, a member showed up wearing a helmet and wrapped in bubble wrap to make a point. You can decide for yourself whether that aligned with the standards the club claimed to hold.

That is the gap many clubs struggle with. It is not defining values. It is living them, especially when it is uncomfortable.

Because at the end of the day, governance is not tested when things are easy. It is tested when someone crosses a line and the people responsible for addressing it have to decide whether they are willing to be consistent, even when it is personal.

This is why structure matters. Evaluate behavior without names when possible. Create a clear matrix so decisions are not subjective. Define non negotiables in a way that reflects who the club truly wants to be. And most importantly, align the board around the responsibility and stewardship that comes with the role. Because once you sit in that seat, the expectation changes. And these decisions rarely show up clean.

A board member violates a golf access rule. The professional addresses it and explains that it needs to be reported to the grievance committee. The response is simple. Do what you have to do. A former club president gets into an argument at another club that escalates into a physical altercation. These are not hypothetical situations. Variations of them happen more often than most people realize.

The question is not whether the behavior is uncomfortable to address. It is whether the standard still applies when the name is familiar. I write these with the hope that they are helpful to my peers and to the people who volunteer their time to serve their clubs and institutions. If nothing else, my goal is to provoke some thought and offer a safe way to test it.

Take a couple of scenarios like these and walk through them within your own organization. Talk about what should happen before you are forced to decide in the moment.