The executive director doesn't tell the truth. If a director wishes to avoid confrontation or cannot maintain his or her authority legitimately, he or she will play the board members against the staff. In organizations where board members are not recruited from the constituency, individual staff members are unlikely to know board members personally, and neither side has any way to check on the veracity of what they are being told. Usually the director has convinced him or herself that his or her actions are justified, and that it doesn't really matter if what he or she says is not exactly true - the work of the organization is what is important. High staff or board turnover can also disguise another problem, which is that some people never leave.
New people come and go, but the old guard remains.
Rigid lines of communication and strict hierarchy spell cover up. While legitimate compliance with accepted customs is appropriate, servile surrender to tradition is a sign of a problem. Lack of participation on the part of those with new ideas or new ways of thinking is the outcome here. Like English ivy on a fence, these dynamics intertwine and wrap around each other, so that separating each strand is impossible. To describe them is, by necessity, to oversimplify.