The role that leaders perform in governing nonprofit organizations has confounded practitioners and scholars since the time of the early settlers, whe Show moreThe role that leaders perform in governing nonprofit organizations has confounded practitioners and scholars since the time of the early settlers, when the functions of governance were first separated. Is governance the role of the board, management, or both? Today, little has changed. Public and private nonprofit organizations, almost all of which are governed by boards of lay citizens and by professional executives, continue to define the gap between what the board's role is and what the chief executive officer's (CEO) role is. Organizations such as BoardSource (formerly the National Center for Nonprofit Boards), The Aspen Institute, the Independent Sector, and the Foundation Center fund, publish and disseminate research and reports in an attempt to educate, explain, and understand the complexity of nonprofit governance. This present study is based on empirical data of quantitative surveys, qualitative interviews, and policy statements from 18 board-chairmen and CEOs with nonprofit electric co-operatives.1 The study describes the perceptions of their roles in governance. Our findings suggest that boards and CEOs recognize their overlapping role in governance. Hence, they put in place systems, processes, and boundaries to facilitate schemes of joint engagement. Furthermore, our results describe practices of engagement as a means of managing complexity and tension between boards and CEOs. The operatives can facilitate joint engagement between boards and CEOs. The results highlight implications of good governance and dimension of joint engagement for practitioners-boards and CEOs, as well as for scholars. Show less