Juliet Corbett

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 Highlights

  • Encouraging 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

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Catch up on previous episodes at www.consultjuliet.co.uk/podcast