Crises Demand Energizers-in-Chief at All Levels
“The fog of despair hung over the land. One out of every four American workers lacked a job. Factories that had once darkened the skies with smoke stood ghostly and silent, like extinct volcanoes. In October the New York City …
Top-Flight Performance Won’t Always Keep the Relationship With Your School Board Healthy
When I walked in Rich’s office for our weekly project review meeting, I found him slumped at his desk looking distraught. When I asked him what’d happened, he just said “take a look,” handing me a form. It was the …
Making Superintendent Evaluation a Relationship Adhesive
As always, I learned as much as I taught from the superintendents participating in the preconference workshop I presented on February 12 at AASA’s National Conference on Education in San Diego – “Cementing the Board-Superintendent Governing Partnership.” The diverse, high-level …
Bake Your Board Cake First, Then Worry About the Icing
A sorely disappointed superintendent and I were talking a couple of months ago. She, her school board, and her senior administrators had gone through an intensive weekend retreat a six weeks earlier. She explained that it’d been put together to …
Implementing is a Far Cry From Authorizing in the K-12 Governance Business
One of the more egregious errors I made early in my career as a K-12 governance consultant and coach was allowing myself to be pressured into facilitating a daylong board capacity building work session involving all board members and the …
Kick Off 2020 By Updating Your Superintendent Governance Strategy
Preparing for a recent superintendent coaching session, I fine-tuned the process that I’d developed several years ago for updating the Superintendent Governance Strategy. All really board-savvy superintendents know that governance (encompassing the work of the board and the board- superintendent …
Innovators-in-Chief in Action: Disney’s Robert Iger and Iowa City Schools’ Steve Murley
“What can I do to get my board meaningfully engaged in leading innovation and change in my district?” I hear variations of this very important question quite often from superintendents in my one-on-one governance coaching sessions and educational workshops. There’s …
The Glue that Cements the Board Chair-Superintendent Partnership
“What’s a fair price to pay for a healthy relationship with your board chair?” My opening question kicking off the board-superintendent relationship building segment of the High-Impact Governing Work Session I presented for Southern Fairfield County (Connecticut) superintendents a couple …
Southern Fairfield County, Connecticut Superintendents Discuss Enriching Board Composition
Earlier this week, I was privileged to facilitate a 1 1/2-day “High-Impact Governing Work Session” involving 15-some Southern Fairfield County, Connecticut superintendents – a group that meets monthly under the leadership of the New Canaan superintendent, Bryan Luizzi. We were …
A Compelling Case for Board Engagement In External Relations
In my workshops for school board members, superintendents, and superintendent-aspirants – including the ones I presented at the 2018 NSBA and AASA annual meetings, I make a point of discussing the creative, productive role that board members can play in …
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