Category: Board Accountability

Holding the board accountable for its own effectiveness in governance, and its capacity for effectiveness in the future

Question #45 – Does Your Board Respond to Board Monitoring?

Rick Maloney

(49 Questions to Ask Your Board) A school board, being composed of persons, may find self-assessment distasteful. Implicit in the process, after all, is the assumption that its members will admit to some failures. They must be ready to see themselves as lacking in some areas. But board members, like most people, may get defensive when asked to account for their shortcomings. It is easier for boards to critique the performance of their main employee, the superintendent. ― Gene Maeroff1 Read More …

Question #44 – Does Your Board Monitor Board Performance?

Rick Maloney

(49 Questions to Ask Your Board) The unexamined life is not worth living. – Socrates Becoming a Better Board Member offers advice to boards for monitoring their own performance: Reviewing our own performance can be a healing experience. Scenario: A year and a half after two new members joined the South Valley School Board, deep divisions remain among board members and between the board and top district leadership. The board and senior staff, interviewed anonymously by an outside consultant, said Read More …

Question #43 – Does Your Board Set Criteria for Measuring Board Success?

Rick Maloney

(49 Questions to Ask Your Board) High-performing boards are characterized by a number of observable behaviors. They know what their job is, and they do it efficiently. They plan their own work and perform their work at the policy level, focusing more on organizational outcomes than process. They are responsible for their own performance; they follow their own rules and deal fairly and consistently with staff and each other. They set the vision for themselves and the organization. They clearly understand Read More …

Question #42 – Does Your Board Hold Itself Accountable?

Rick Maloney

(49 Questions to Ask Your Board) If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. ― James Madison1 To be fully effective, the board controls Read More …

The Three-Legged Stool of Board Leadership

Rick Maloney

This month’s edition (February 2023) of the American School Board Journal included a feature article that I wrote, describing leadership, including school board leadership, as a 3-legged stool. Here’s how they introduce the topic: School boards must balance responsibility, authority, and accountability to successfully govern, writes board trainer and long-time school board leader Rick Maloney. Here’s a link to that article: The Three-Legged Stool