What makes a great chair of governors?

 A question was posed in an online forum recently that really got me thinking - What makes a great chair of governors? Well, for starters 'great' is a tricky word, what do we mean by it? How would we judge it? I tend to favour the concept of an effective chair of governors leading an effective board as that suggests that they have some impact. Whatever language we choose, the interesting part of this question is the 'what?' - what makes it work so let's try and explore that a little.

A review of academic literature, and the writing of consultants with years of experience in the field, suggest that the role of the chair is a key leadership role in organisations and influences the effectiveness of, not only the board, but the organisation as a whole. I like the idea of the chair as an enabler who helps others to do their best work - including the executive team. Another article talks of the chair helping the board to "be productive" [1] which is another good way of looking at it. So here are a few highlights gleaned from my reading and research so far ...

The DfE talks of boards appointing "an effective chair and vice-chair with the ability to provide visionary strategic non-executive leadership" [2]. So for me this gets straight to the heart of a key issue that makes for an effective chair ... 

• Stay in your lane!

It is absolutely essential that the chair understands the separate yet complementary [3] roles that the board and executive play in an organisation.  The board's role is strategic, the chair leads the board and the executive leader leads and manages the organisation (school or MAT in the case of education). James et al. (2012) write of this in terms of two systems - the governing system and the operating system [4]. The chair, they suggest, is a boundary worker working the line between the two. The chair also leads the board in its role of holding the executive to account for the delivery of the strategy. Both leaders must form a strong working relationship - working together, in lane yet not in "silos" [5] it's a team effort, together for the same mission [13].

• Form the link between the board and the executive

I have written a bit about this in a previous post [6]- it's the subject of my PhD research so I will come back to this again no doubt - but researchers across corporate, non-profit and education sectors have found the relationship between the chair and the executive leader to be absolutely crucial to the success of the organisation. 

• Know your organisation

A DfE report commissioned in 2014 suggests that "As chair, you need to have a thorough understanding and knowledge of your school" [7]. I don't think this in contentious at all and as chair you need to help the board improve their knowledge through the organisation of the board's work.  You will encourage governors to visit with specific aims in mind, organise presentations to the board about important aspects of the organisation's work, curriculum areas for example, and use the "expert knowledge" of the executive to share and learn from one another [6] - 'every day's a school day' as the saying goes!. 

• Stay true to your values

There is significant emphasis in the literature across all sectors studied about the importance of shared values (between exec. and non-exec.) [4,5,8] and this is something we governors should be very much on top of.  The Nolan Principles are embedded in the way we operate, in our code of conduct, and we should have been involved in the formulation of values for our organisation.  As chair the literature would suggest that we should be led by those values, modelling them in all our interactions with integrity and trust frequently referred to as of  particular importance.  

• Trust [9]

So trust seems to be especially important and, for me, it stands on a foundation of our other shared values.  I might do a whole blog post on this at some point soon. "Without trust you cannot lead" [10] and evidence points to organisations with high levels of trust being highly effective [8,9,11].  As chair it is our role to make the boardroom a safe place where board members can trust that they will be respected, able to voice an opinion and be heard. 

.... which leads us on to 

• Listening and communication

Chairs need to be good listeners (and I know I need to constantly work on this)  we need to listen, not only to the loud voices at the table but for the quiet voices too.  We should be meeting regularly and listening to the executive leader for whom we can be a useful sounding board.  For us the executive leader is a vital source of information and knowledge from whom we can learn, being trusted (see point above) means this knowledge is more likely to be shared. These regular interactions are an important part of cementing that strong relationship built of mutual respect and trust that the NGA [12], DfE [2] and academic literature from several sectors suggests is so important. 

In his guide for charity trustees Brian Cavanagh states "a good chair understands that their role is to serve the board by helping to share a good governance culture" [13], effective chairs build relationships [14], allow voices to be heard, enable others to do their best work and step up to role of leader! [13]

1. Veltrop, D. B., Bezemer, P., Nicholson, G., & Pugliese, A. (2021). Too Unsafe to Monitor? How Board–CEO Cognitive Conflict and Chair Leadership Shape Outside Director Monitoring. Academy of Management Journal, 64(1), 207-234.

2. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/governance-handbook

3. Roberts, J. (2002). Building the complementary board. The work of the plc chairman. Long Range Planning, 35(5), 493-520.

4. James, C., Brammer, S., Connolly, M., Eddy Spicer, D., James, J. and Jones, J. (2012b). A review of the literature on the role of the board chair: What are the messages for chairs of school governing bodies? CfBT Education Trust. 

5. Srour, Y., Shefer, N., & Carmeli, A. (2022). Positive Chair-CEO work relationships: Micro-relational foundations of organizational capabilities. Long Range Planning, 55(3), 1-23.

6. https://insearchofgreatschoolgovernance.blogspot.com/2021/02/a-relationship-of-equals-executive-and.html

7. NCTL for DfE. (2014). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/leading-governors-the-role-of-the-chair-of-governors

8. Koskinen, S., & Lämsä, A. (2017). Development of trust in the CEO-chair relationship. Baltic Journal of Management, 12(3), 274-291

9. Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709-734.

10. Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2019). Leadership in Higher Education: Practices that make a difference. BERRETT-KOEHLER. p.91

11. Shaw, B. (1997). Trust in the Balance. Jossey Bass

12. NGA - https://www.nga.org.uk/media/awka3noe/what-we-expect-gb-heads-4pp-apr2022-aw.pdf

13. Cavanagh, B. (2022). Governing with purpose; How to lead a brilliant board - a guide for charity trustees. Practical Inspiration Publishing

14. Harrison, Y., Murray, V., & Cornforth, C. (2013). Perceptions of Board Chair Leadership Effectiveness in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Organizations. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary & Nonprofit Organizations, 24(3), 688-712.