CEO and employees are the ones that build the company. In many places the role of the board is just to fire / hire the CEO. In some orgs they have more roles:

CEO and employees are the ones that build the company. In many places the role of the board is just to fire / hire the CEO. In some orgs they have more roles: getting financing, customers, audit, agreeing on certain things (e.g. investments, or contracts). Sometimes the board also has more prerogatives. But in general the role is a more ceremonial role that once per year chooses the audit firm (one of the big 4 companies.. so not very hard), maybe makes some obligatory resolutions, like confirming the audit result. Their biggest power is to remove the CEO and choose the CEO's compensation. Getting a seat on a board of a public company is like free money. Most boards dont meet often. Typical boards in companies represent the shareholders (aka remove the CEO if they want to do something crazy), while in non profits they are usually there to find financing or networking. So yes, you can get very far with a bad board, because most boards are quite inactive. The members read some documents, maybe sometimes request some data - and that's all.