I'm on the senior leadership team of a charity currently going through a somewhat turbulent time... 

Our CEO went on maternity leave and the Interim CEO that came in did not get on particularly well with our team at all, micromanaging, setting unrealistic timelines, delegating everything including tasks which were her responsibility, and generally undermining everyone, talking down to us and constantly criticising everything we had previously done, to the point where everyone's confidence took a knock. Upon the return of our CEO from maternity leave, the trustees announced that the Interim CEO was staying on for an additional few months to exclusively work on developing a new strategy. Understandably this was a shock to us, and our CEO was particularly upset and promptly took a period of sick leave. 

The work on the new strategy was put on hold and the Interim CEO disappeared, with two of my colleagues stepping up as acting interim, until we were eventually told of our CEO's resignation by the chair of trustees. It would seem that this was in the pipeline for a while, but she was forced to secrecy from us, her team, presumably there is something legal going on. The trustees went out to recruit for an interim, and yes, you've guessed it, they brought back in the previous Interim CEO, despite not having engaged with us as an SLT or asking for any thoughts or feedback. 

She is apparently with us for a few months to "sort things out" (we recently lost a big contract and are facing some budget cuts) but she also says she's not working in a line management capacity. There are clearly some big decisions to be made over the next few months, including some pretty major restructuring as a result of the drop in income, but as an SLT we are not being kept in the loop. Over the past year I've only spoken to the chair of trustees twice in person, and a couple of time by way of virtual meeting, even though she only lives 10 minutes away and she also perpetually ignores communication with the Exec Assistant, who has to send 3 emails and multiple whatsapps to get a response on sometime urgent matters and she is constantly re-sheduling board and sub-committee meetings. There is just no engagement whatsoever with the board and the SLT - it feels like they have no interest in us or any concern for our experience, opinion, or welfare for that matter. 

My question is, what we can do in this situation? We understand that the role of trustees is supposed to be governance and top level decision making, rather than operational, but there is such a widening gap between them and us, I can't see how we can move forward in a positive and solutions oriented way. I'm struggling to understand how they can make plans for new strategy or a restructure when they don't have first hand experience or knowledge of what it's like to be in the organisation and the operational challenges and nuances that only we have expertise and familiarity of. 

I welcome suggestions as to how our leadership team and try and bridge the gap and communicate how we are feeling.