(Questions to Ask Your Board)
The development of a governance mindset in our view is the most important characteristic of effective trustees…Having a governance mindset is understanding the role and responsibilities of the governing board and how individual trustee leadership can enhance the positive, value-added impact of the governance process. – Davis Campbell and Michael Fullan1
It is not enough to acquire knowledge (what to know) or skills (what to do) for governance. Boards must as a first priority develop a mindset (what to be) that predisposes them to act on their knowledge, applying their skills to perform the strategic role of a board. A governance mindset combines an attitude of servant-leadership with a growth mindset to enable a board to fulfill its governance responsibilities.
The importance of this task. The board’s core accountability function is directly related to and dependent on its responsibility function. If we accept responsibility to serve the public interest, we must be willing to account to the public for all district performance, holding accountable all those who answer to the board. We must also hold ourselves accountable, collectively as a board and individually as board members, to the community we serve. Having a governance mindset, then, requires that we bear the mantle of responsibility and with it the full spectrum of accountability for the performance of the district, the board, and its individual board members.
Petersen and Fusarelli2 describe, at one end of a continuum, overconfident boards that think of themselves as “far superior to mere educators such as the superintendent,” and at the other end, overly humble boards that “seldom question the professional expertise of the superintendent.” A servant leader orientation permits neither of these extremes. The servant leader takes full responsibility for the leader’s role and balances the idea of responsibility to (the role of a servant) with the equally important idea of responsibility for (the role of a leader).
A servant-first decision is symbolically represented in the oath of office administered when a board member takes office. In addition to deciding to be servant-first, a board also must intentionally step up to its responsibility for others by taking charge as owner-representative and leader of the district. Regardless of the levels of individual talent, including dispositions, knowledge and skills possessed by its members, the board as a legally defined entity must be fully responsible for all district performance.
The ultimate end toward which effective school board efforts should be directed is student learning. Research conducted by psychologist Carol Dweck3 indicates that the most successful students are those who develop and employ a growth mindset – a core belief that intelligence is not fixed, that it has a capacity to grow, and that growth in learning is strongly influenced by the learner’s efforts.
The value of a system-wide growth mindset is also validated by school board research. A landmark study of school boards in otherwise similar districts that significantly differed in their student achievement test scores concluded that a board’s beliefs about students’ ability to learn do make a difference in student achievement:
In the high-achieving districts, the board/superintendent team and school personnel consistently expressed an “elevating” view of students. Students were viewed as emerging and flexible, and the school’s job was seen as releasing each student’s potential. – Mary Dellagardelle4
These findings from the Iowa Lighthouse Study show that the most effective school boards, as measured by student achievement, are those with an elevating view – in effect a growth mindset about the capacity for growth in students’ ability to achieve high standards through their learning efforts. The positive effects of a growth mindset can be extended through the board’s beliefs about staff in their instructional and managerial roles, beliefs about the board collectively in its governance role, and beliefs about board members individually in their boardsmanship role.
Further research (Lighthouse II) studied efforts to bring about improvements in student learning through board professional development aimed at increasing background knowledge underlying and reinforcing the beliefs described in the findings of Lighthouse I. Researchers found that not only board beliefs, but also board efforts to learn, do make a difference:
When local school board-superintendent teams generate a districtwide focus on improved achievement and engage local administrators and teachers in creating or strengthening key conditions that support continuous improvement it will result in high and equitable student achievement and elevated beliefs across the system. – Mary Dellagardelle
When a board adopts a governance mindset it is ready to act because it has a solid foundation on which to act. It understands its purpose and defines its role in relation to its responsibilities. With the perspective offered by distinguishing its own role from that of the superintendent and staff whom the superintendent manages, it provides strategic and operational guidance with expectations that are both lofty and achievable, then pursues those expectations with an accountability mindset based on its servant-leader orientation and the formative dispositions of a growth mindset. The result of a governance mindset is fulfillment of the board’s purpose: assurance of positive student outcomes.
Governance Mindset consists of 4 primary* elements: Commitment to Serve, Willingness to Lead, Belief in Growth, and Work Ethic.
* Growth mindset and servant-leader orientation are necessary for a governance mindset but are insufficient when we consider each of the board’s governance responsibilities. Dispositions (values and attitudes) that prepare the board to perform each of its major responsibilities supplement these essential elements of a governance mindset.
NOTE: The opinions expressed in these blog entries are informed by references cited herein, and the experiences of the author. Your comments are welcome additions to the conversation.
Excerpt from:
- A Framework for School Governance (2018), Rick Maloney
Additional References:
Additional References:
- 1The Governance Core (2019) Davis Campbell and Michael Fullan
- 2The Future of School Board Governance: Relevancy and Revelation (2008) Thomas Alsbury, ed.
- 3Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2007), Carol Dweck
- 4The Lighthouse Project: Shining the Light on How Boards Can Make a Significant Difference in Student Learning (2024) Lou Ann Gvist
NEXT: #3 – (In Order to Lead) Is Your Board Committed to Serve?
Hi Rick,
Glad to see that you are still working on the governance piece!
I would argue that governance should engage in a subtraction mindset! Most districts take on way too much and become lost in the fog! Read my book, The Fog of Education!
Occam’s razor is the answer!
Focus on a few integrated professional practices system-wide and monitor the hell out of them. For example, focus on Explicit Instruction system wide. Focus on the Science of Reading. That’s it!
Most education systems are in the emergency room with a knife in their back. They need more focus on a few things! Forget the feng shue!
Less is more! Subtraction is the way to go!
Bill, agreed. Our local board has succeeded in its current mindset and approach by intentionally narrowing its scope, defining the board role (you would call it a subtractive mindset) by focusing primarily on results to be achieved for students, and secondarily on identifying superintendent decisions that would violate our values. Then (for the past 21+ years we have monitored the hell out of those end results and those values. We accept without interference the superintendent’s freedom of decision-making, knowing that s/he will be held accountable for their results. It has served us well, in that during that period we have had a total of two superintendents and have gone from an ‘above average’ school district to one of the top 10 or 20 districts in our state, while having a much-higher than average student poverty rate than almost all others at that level.