The HOA Hunger Games: May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor

Warning Label

Before proceeding, please be advised that HOA board members are elected by their neighbors. No experience is required. No management background is required. No financial expertise or leadership training. In some cases, common sense appears to be entirely optional.

Yet somehow these same individuals are entrusted with multimillion-dollar budgets, major construction projects, legal matters, personnel decisions, reserve funding, vendor contracts, and the overall quality of life of hundreds of residents and oversign of a management team.

What could possibly go wrong?

Now, before the keyboard warriors come for me, let me be clear: not all board members fit this description. Throughout my career managing luxury high-rise communities, I have had the privilege of working alongside a handful of truly exceptional board members. These are the rare individuals who understand that serving on a board is not about power, status, or settling personal grievances. They understand that they are there to protect their investment, preserve property values, and make decisions that benefit the community as a whole.

Unfortunately, these people are often the first casualties of board politics. The ego-driven personalities dominate conversations. The loudest voices consume the oxygen in the room. And eventually, many of the good ones decide life is simply too short. Whoever said high school elections don't exist in adulthood has clearly never attended an HOA annual meeting.

HOA elections are often nothing more than the last adult popularity contest.

And when you are the general manager, the winners become your bosses.

Five to nine of them, all at the same time.

Every one of them convinced they know how to run a luxury high-rise.

Every one of them believing their issue is the most important issue, because they almost always come with a personal agenda.

Every one of them expecting immediate action.

Let's meet a few of the characters I've encountered along the way.

Let's start with David. David was the very first board president I worked with in my career. He is of short stature. David didn't have conversations. David had eruptions. He would scream at me. Not raise his voice or become frustrated. Scream. At me. Phone calls occasionally felt like hostage negotiations where the hostage was basic human decency.

There were moments when I genuinely worried for my safety. There were also moments when I genuinely cried.

What made it fascinating was that David viewed this behavior as perfectly acceptable. In his mind, volume was leadership. The louder he got, the more convinced he became that he was winning. As a General Manager, I learned many valuable skills from David.

Patience. Self-control. And the ability to stare calmly into the eyes of a grown man having a public meltdown while mentally planning next month's preventive maintenance schedule.

Then there was Paul.

Paul was, without question, one of the most intelligent people I have ever worked with.

A highly accomplished physician. A brilliant doctor.

A man whose professional achievements far exceeded anything most of us could ever hope to accomplish. Unfortunately, Paul applied the same level of scrutiny to every part of my role that he likely applied to his medical practice.

Paul would send an email at 9:00 PM on a Friday. Then at 8:00 AM Monday morning, I would receive a snarky, condescending follow-up email asking why I hadn't responded.

Not because the building was on fire or because residents were trapped in elevators.

It was because approximately 59 hours had passed and I had not responded to his email.

Paul tracked response times like a NASA engineer monitoring a moon landing.

I became convinced he had a spreadsheet somewhere documenting exactly how long it took me to acknowledge every email, answering his obscure questions and another one for each and every gramatical error I made. His level of attention to detail was extraordinary.

His patience was not. He scrutinized every single thing I did, and it still wasn't good enough. Spoiler - no manager will ever be good enough to placate Paul. People are disposable to Paul and the turnover shows it.

And then there was Shellie.

Oh, Shellie.

Shellie appeared to be in a different headspace, perhaps not exactly lucid. She was partaking of special medicines. No judgment. People are free to live their lives however they choose. But when that person also happens to be an overly involved board member, things become... complicated.

Texts at 10:00 AM.

Texts at 6:00 PM.

Texts at 10:00 PM.

Texts at midnight.

Texts at 3:00 AM.

Texts at hours that should only exist for emergency room doctors and 911 Operators.

And these weren't simple messages. These were novels.

Long, rambling streams of consciousness that wandered through multiple subjects, often requiring a decoder ring, three cups of coffee, and a fresh perspective the following morning. The expectation, of course, was that I would respond. Regardless of the fact that it was 3:00 AM. My personal favorite part was receiving unsolicited updates regarding her ketamine treatments while simultaneously trying to determine whether there was an actual building-related request hidden somewhere in the message.

Sometimes there was. Sometimes there wasn't.The uncertainty kept things exciting.

The exhaustion was real. The hard part is that she expected me to execute (after decoding) all her brillant ideas (without a board vote or approval). Put random twinkle lights on the roof, order interesting items from Amazon and oh hey, lets install purple and red lights in the common area club room. And if I did not do exactly what she wanted, she would in fact complain...to Paul and the other Board Members. I wish they would have known she was perhaps in an altered state while all the requests were made.

The Part Nobody Talks About

Here’s what many homeowners do not fully understand: a General Manager does not have one boss. In practice, we may have five, seven, or even nine - all at the same time.

While the management company is technically the employer, it ultimately answers to the Board of Directors. That dynamic means the General Manager must continuously navigate the expectations, priorities, personalities, and perspectives of multiple individual board members each of whom can effectively function as a boss.

Every board member comes to the table with their own priorities, opinions, and definition of what matters most. The General Manager is then tasked with balancing those competing interests while still protecting the operation, leading the onsite team, maintaining resident satisfaction, and representing the management company professionally.

It is a uniquely complex leadership position because success is not simply about managing the property well. It is also about managing relationships, expectations, competing agendas, and governance dynamics - all at once.

Each board member arrives with their own priorities.

Their own pet projects.

Their own complaints.

Their own opinions.

Their own version of how the building should be run.

And because they're elected, many believe that winning an HOA election instantly qualifies them to become experts in engineering, accounting, legal matters, construction, human resources, security operations, hospitality, landscaping, architecture, insurance, budgeting, and personnel management.

It's truly remarkable. My experience as the General Manager never mattered. Just because I do this professionally was simply inconsequential.

Then add hundreds of residents, contractors, vendors and attorneys. Then add a corporate management company. Speaking of corporate management companies...

Let's have an uncomfortable conversation and break it down in full transparency.

The board is the client.

The board controls the contract.

The board controls whether the management company keeps the business.

So when conflicts arise between a General Manager and a dysfunctional board member, or members, who do you suppose the management company is most likely to support or protect?

In the luxury high-rise world, this dynamic becomes even more intense. I can assure you, The management company does not care if a board member yells, screams or abuses you, takes advantage and demands your personal time and absolutely no one cares about your mental health. How dare you want Christmas off as a General Manager. They generally do not care. They will withhold your annual bonus just to be spiteful, I can attest to that.

On the contrary if you do succeed as a luxury high-rise general manager, what you get is:

Larger budgets.

Higher expectations.

More complex operations.

Stronger personalities.

Bigger egos.

More money.

More politics.

More pressure.

And often, very little support.

The hardest part of the job isn't the building.

It's the people.

A Message to Homeowners

If your General Manager leaves after a few months and does not stay a few years, pay attention.

If your building goes through managers every year or every other year, pay attention.

If multiple managers leave under the same board, pay attention.

High turnover is not normal.

It is a symptom.

Good people do not continuously leave healthy environments.

People should matter.

Leadership should matter.

Culture should matter.

And before automatically blaming the manager, homeowners should take a hard look at the board itself.

Because sometimes the problem isn't management. Sometimes the problem is governance.

The Good Ones

Despite everything I've written, I remain grateful.

Because I have also had the privilege of working with two exceptional women who served as Board Presidents. They were intelligent. Collaborative. Professional. Respectful.

They understood partnership. They understood leadership. Most importantly, they understood that their role was to serve the community, not themselves.

Together, we accomplished incredible things that benefited entire communities rather than advancing individual agendas.

Those experiences remind me that the HOA model can work. When the right people are involved.

The Real Problem

After years in this industry, I've come to one conclusion: The HOA system is largely broken.

The selection process is broken. We routinely place enormous authority into the hands of people whose primary qualification is receiving the most votes from their neighbors. Sometimes those neighbors elect thoughtful leaders. Sometimes they elect people with good intentions. And sometimes they elect individuals who should not be allowed to manage a fantasy football league, let alone a multimillion-dollar corporation or employees and a management team.

The problem is that popularity and competence are not the same thing.

And until communities start recognizing the difference, General Managers everywhere will continue attending board meetings wondering whether they're running a luxury high-rise... or supervising the world's most expensive student council.

And now, off to therapy.