For an educational leader, a Governing Body or Board is critical to the beating heart of an organisation. Depending on how that pacemaker performs, it will either enhance the flow of life-giving sustenance or it will clog the arteries, inducing calcification and the significant risk of organ failure. It’s generally one way or the other.
Board members are volunteers and that can bring great benefits or cause serious difficulties. The good news is that people generally agree to join a Board because they are disposed to contribute and identify, in some way, with the values of the organisation. But joining a Board is an anxious time. Induction for new board members is critical to their success and they need to feel that they are welcomed by both the Board and the lead executive. On so many occasions I have seen new members ‘appear’ at their first meeting without introduction or welcome – in these situations both new and established Board members revert to defensive positions. That can lead to passive board membership or it can lead to displays of machismo (from both men and women). Once a persona is established, with either dropped head or assertive knuckles on the Board table, it can be hard to shift.
My earliest memories of Board engagement as a school leader were almost universally positive. My first Board Chair, the wonderful Jim Pennington, was a former RAF officer. Jim told me that he had recruited me because I was a long distance runner! He saw runners as disciplined and resilient, which seemed to count for more than whatever else I had used to embellish my resume. I’ve been running ever since.
Jim taught me how a good Board should run. Meetings were short and focused. Board members did not grandstand or pursue personal agendas. Educators were treated as the business experts and their opinions were not trumped by random recollections of an individual’s experience of school from the previous century (it was 1999). The expectations he held of me were that I would lead the school well, that I would be open and honest with the Board and that I would be the first person to blow the whistle when help was needed or problems were faced. If I didn’t do that, I would be held to account. Trust was the critical factor.
Educational leaders who don’t trust or who are not trusted by their Boards often incline towards hiding things from them. Concealing poor financial or operational results from a Board is the road to ruin. If a Board feels that things are being kept from it, it can quickly turn from being a benign guardian into an aggressive and factionalised inquisition. Once the line between executive and legislative responsibility is crossed and becomes blurred, often only a complete reset of personnel will fix it.
The Board as ‘critical friend’ is the classically recommended position to find. But criticism can easily subsume friendship if Board understanding of an institution is anecdotal and based on arbitrary sources of information such as personal friendship or whatsapp groups. Around any large organisation, there will always be a certain narrative level of discontent, led by those who are discontented. Boards and leadership who orientate themselves solely to negative voices become reactive, skewed and risk averse. I might complain vigorously about the way my bank treats me (I do, frequently) but this does not mean that I have changed my bank. I might rail against the paucity of choice on Netflix but I am still a subscriber. I might complain bitterly about the manager of my favourite football club but I am still a fan.
It is much, much more important for leaders and Boards to agree on a data dashboard of positive indicators of the organisation’s health and efficacy and limit discussions to these areas. Complaints should not be ignored but neither should they drive behaviour. What sort of indicators might be on a dashboard?
- Budget and budget projections
- Admissions numbers and trends
- Examination data and university admissions
- Exit survey results
- Staff attrition rates and size/quality of recruitment fields
- Staff and parent satisfaction surveys
- Student surveys
- Safeguarding and serious Health and Safety incidents
- Whistleblowing reports
- Accreditation or audit reports and recommendations
- Progress against agreed strategic targets
- Critical policy reviews
- Emergent issues
More than enough here for an annual round of board meetings, much of it handled through sub committees. Enough for an agreement that the school will offer full disclosure and the Board will offer full support and that TRUST will be the prevailing climate.
I have seen schools where the quarterly Board document pack runs into hundreds of pages. Seriously, who has the time? And who has been required to take all that time to produce the documents? I have seen organisations where the leaders spend nearly all of their time producing reports which go unread and undiscussed rather than spending time with their students, staff and parents. I have seen Board strategy where education doesn’t even appear on the list of priorities, where process and personal power-plays relegate students and learning to a side show.
When a Board thinks its role is to give the leadership a work schedule, something has gone badly wrong.
Michael Iannini, CIS Affiliated Consultant and Paul Smith, Founder and CEO of Future Directors Institute, shared a helpful article on the CIS website recently entitled Why does your board need a health check?. In this piece they look at 13 key performance indicators for good Board performance. Their 13 key indicators are:
- Balanced roles—Each board member understands their role and level of authority
- Clear objectives and purpose—Agreed clarity around your reasons to exist as a board, namely; why you do what you do
- Openness, trust, and conflict resolution—Placing transparency and honesty at the forefront of all board decisions and conversations, and knowing how to solve any issues
- Interpersonal communication and relationships—Negative interactions between board members can create flow-on effects throughout the board and organisation, but these can be avoided through clear communication and healthy relationships
- Individual and board learning and development—Knowledge is the key to growth, and there should be a continual desire to learn and grow for every member
- Inter-group relations and communications—Being able to connect and communicate effectively with other various groups and organisations
- Appropriate management and leadership—The pinnacle of a great board is the person/s leading it
- Effective Board procedures—Recognising the procedures that work, and being able to fix those that don’t
- Output, performance, quality, and accountability—Ensuring every board member is performing to a predetermined standard and the board is realizing its purpose
- Morale—A high level of enthusiasm and confidence is necessary for an effective, positive board
- Empowerment—Allowing board members to feel strong and sure about their role
- Change, creativity, and challenge the status quo—Being able to evolve as a board, challenging the way things have been done in favor of a better way
- Decision-making and problem solving—When problems arise, it’s important to be able to solve them in a fast, effective manner
Perhaps the most important thing for any educational Board to remember is that they are running a place of education. If it’s a college, it’s about the undergraduates; if it’s a school, it’s about the children. The people who know best about educating children are the people who have been professionally trained to do that. A good Chair and a good Board start from a basis of trust; they start from the basis that they don’t automatically know best and they don’t start from a belief that teachers are naive, woke and clueless about business.
I have been lucky enough to serve on several school Boards and visit many schools as an evaluator. I have seen exceptional leadership modelled in a number of settings, but not in every setting. Where stewardship is good, it is committed, light touch and sincere: where it is bad, it is ego driven, blame-oriented and unkind.
The prevailing values and behaviours in any organisation inevitably flow down from the top. What does your Board model for you?
