A staple of my one-on-one governance coaching sessions with superintendents in recent years has been the critical role that what I call “Mindset” plays in building and maintaining a close, positive, productive and enduring board-superintendent partnership. What am I talking about? In a nutshell, Mindset is how you, as your district’s chief executive officer, picture yourself vis a vis your school board. Experience has taught me that if you bring the wrong Mindset to the relationship with your board, it probably won’t matter what other partnership building steps you take (for example, reaching agreement with board members on guidelines for your communication with the board). The relationship with your board will be in serious jeopardy.
To take a negative example, over the years I’ve frequently encountered what I think of as the “We-They” Mindset. Actually, it has proved to be so deadly from a relationship building perspective that it might be seen as a syndrome. A superintendent embracing the We-They syndrome sees herself as essentially representing the faculty and administrative staff (making up, with the superintendent, the We) to the They: the board. The syndrome is even deadlier when the superintendent goes beyond the notion of representation to protection: seeing one of her preeminent responsibilities as defending her We partners from the (to her) clear and present danger of board – the They – “micro-management.”
The problem with this negative Mindset is that it tends to prevent the superintendent from seeing the governing function from the perspective of board members. Hence, the superintendent is unlikely to fully understand the needs that board members bring to the governing arena that the superintendent is in a position to satisfy. For example, the great majority of board members I’ve worked with over the past 35 year have wanted to feel like satisfied owners of their governing decisions and judgments; to experience ego satisfaction; and the like. All too many superintendents, in my experience, are so busy playing defense they fail to take the offense in fashioning and executing offensive partnership building strategies.
I’ve learned that superintendents who bring the right Mindset to the work with their board tend to build positive and productive partnerships with real staying power. These board-savvy superintendents see themselves as:
- Occupying a hybrid position as chief executive officer of their district: part board member-part staff member and neither entirely.
- Specializing in the nuts and bolts of governing, understanding what practices work and what don’t.
- Playing the leading role in helping their board develop its governing capability – not standing back and waiting for board members to take the lead.
- Being close colleagues of their board members, whom they get to know in-depth as individuals.
- Not worrying about – much less being obsessed with – the threat of board members’ tentacles grabbing hold of administrative details.
- Ensuring that their board president/chair is a close governing ally who succeeds as “CEO” of the board.
