041: Governors and strategy

In this episode, I explore the relationship between governors and strategy. Specifically, I look at how governors can be guided to find a balance between being strategically focused and being operationally focused. With this in mind, I present my top tips on how to encourage governors to understand their role in strategy and how to constructively challenge decisions by senior school leaders. Firstly, I suggest ways to encourage governors to focus on the high-level strategic decisions rather than the small-scale operational detail of your school by ensuring your senior leadership team and governors have a shared understanding of what strategy actually is.Secondly, I outline the four essential building blocks of strategy: your vision for where you are heading as a school, the accelerators and sticking points of your organisation, identifying your plan to overcome the sticking points and, finally, defining your action plan and developing coherent tactics to achieve your vision. I then explore ways governors can challenge school leaders by asking tough questions, testing plans and making sure that those plans and strategies are robust going forward.Episode HighlightsEncouraging governors to focus on the high-level strategic decisions (02:51)The four essential building blocks of strategy (04:11) Encouraging governors to challenge decisions (09:48)Download your copy of the free eBook ‘The Strategic Independent School Leader’ at www.consultjuliet.co.uk/ebook 013: Strategy: Four essential building blocks015: Supercharge your strategic thinking039: Strategy away days: 8 top tipsCatch up on previous episodes at www.consultjuliet.co.uk/podcastThank you so much for listening to The Independent School Podcast. I would be grateful if you could spare a couple of minutes to send me some feedback here. This helps me make the podcast as helpful as possible to listeners. Thank you!