Sir Steve Lancashire is Chair of Forum Strategy’s National #TrustLeaders CEO network. He also provides mentoring for CEOs across our network and through the Being The CEO programme. In this month’s blog, Sir Steve shares his reflections on our third national #TrustLeaders symposium which focused on how we develop and sustain thriving trusts. He suggests six ‘calls to action’ for trust leaders to consider, linking these to the six key principles underpinning thriving trusts and the excellent contributors who spoke on the day. Further content from the event will be shared on our symposium webpage.
One of the joys of being more of an observer and participant than a presenter at the National #TrustLeaders Symposium last week was the opportunity to watch and learn from some great people. As I did this over the course of the day, several things occurred to me. One such thing was the diversity in the types of leaders and leadership styles of those who were being so professionally generous in sharing their expertise and experience across the six principles of thriving trusts; and feeling affirmed by what a good thing this is.
To my mind, a sector that embraces a diverse array of leadership styles is much better positioned to navigate challenges more effectively, capitalise on opportunities, and sustain long-term success. We know that each leadership style brings unique strengths, particularly visionary leadership, which is so crucial for setting long-term goals and inspiring others with a compelling vision of the future; something Steve articulated so well with his ‘clearing the mist in Santorini’ analogy. Conversely, there is also the need for operational leadership which focuses on the efficiency and effectiveness of day-to-day operations where the attention to detail and process optimisation ensures the organisation runs smoothly and can scale effectively. This was beautifully articulated by Annette and Sarah in their description of principle three: securing school to school improvement at scale, whilst protecting the need for schools to feel a degree of autonomy, self-determination and individuality within the system.
And then there’s the concept of ‘transformational leadership’; a style which embraces the principle that sometimes we just need to look at things differently, take a different perspective and, like Einstein, recognise the madness of simply doing the same thing time and time again and expecting a different outcome. Katrina herself used this quote and in doing so brought a transformational lens to principle five: maximising public funds and resources for the benefit of pupils.
Then there was Jenn and Helen’s clear commitment to inclusive leadership, emphasising diversity and collaboration, and recognising that diverse teams and boards are more creative and capable of solving complex problems, such as sustainability; creating environments where all voices are heard, (especially children’s) leading to better decision-making and a more inclusive culture.
I don’t think we could have asked for a better example of servant leadership than that demonstrated by Adrian and Sufian. Leadership that in our context is, of course, about prioritising the needs and well-being of the communities we serve but that in order to do this, that pressing need to actively listen and seek to understand the unique challenges and aspirations of our communities.
And what a sophisticated reminder of the importance of ethical leadership Jonny Uttley gave us in demonstrating how we can become an employer of choice by considering the lived experience of our staff and making a broad statement of public service but doing practical things to deliver on it.
I smile to myself as I think of Alice and Wayne, our two other CEO contributors; could we have any better examples to debunk the myth that there is one model, one way, one type of person that a CEO should be? I don’t think so. Two very different personalities, two very different styles but united in the passion that they bring to their roles and a great reminder for the need for the authentic leadership that they both demonstrated.
“could we have any better examples to debunk the myth that there is one model, one way, one type of person that a CEO should be? I don’t think so.”
My ‘takeaways’ from the symposium though, are a lot more than this reflection on the leadership styles from those presenting of course, this is just my view on the ‘how’ they contributed; there’s so much more in the content of ‘what’ these professionally generous leaders shared. And I’d like to use the rest of this blog to capture some of that as well as to share a ‘call to action’ in each of the different principles of Thriving Trusts. A call to action because, as important as it is for us all to connect in our network, to take ourselves out of the day to day running our organisations, to reflect, think etc, the value has to be measured in the difference it ultimately makes to how well we do our jobs, and how we use what we have learned to improve our trusts and make a bigger difference to those we serve.
Principle one: galvanising people around a compelling and collective vision
Steve Munby, of course, is the epitome of a public servant and it was this theme that was the golden thread that ran through his speech on developing a collective vision that galvanises schools and communities to work together; a vision that must, in Steve’s view, be accessible to all, secure commitment and drive activity. I loved his analogy that this vision must be compelling enough to persuade a goldfish to jump out of the relative safety of the small goldfish bowl and into the much bigger, less known (and potentially scarier!) lake. A great analogy for a small school making that leap of faith into a larger trust. It was in the ‘how’ of this that I found such wisdom in his advice. We do it by being invitational and by making public promises.
Invitational leadership secures commitment to a vision by passionately communicating a compelling future and motivating others to believe in, and work towards it. Invitational leaders articulate a clear, vivid picture of the future that aligns with the values and aspirations of their team and organisation. They embody this vision, demonstrating commitment through their actions and decisions, making their enthusiasm and dedication contagious. And by connecting on an emotional level, invitational leaders understand their team’s hopes, dreams, and concerns, making the vision personally relevant to each individual. They communicate with passion and clarity, using stories, metaphors, and symbols to make the vision memorable and inspiring. Additionally, they empower and enable others by providing opportunities to contribute and shape the vision so that it is shared and owned by all. It is a living and breathing thing that needs to be revisited often. Steve sharing stories of the impact of when he got this right and wrong really served to underline its importance.
His second piece of advice about making public promises was quite profound I felt. His examples of how this strategy can help leaders stay aligned with their vision by fostering a sense of accountability and transparency and the principle that when leaders make commitments openly, they are motivated to follow through to maintain trust and credibility with their team and stakeholders, that this public accountability drives consistent efforts towards achieving the shared vision, and as leaders being held to our word by those we lead was such a persuasive narrative that I wish this was something I’d done much more explicitly. So, call to action number one:
Call to action 1: Make public promises that capture your vision in action and be invitational about them.
Principle Two: shared governance at board-level, and through the work of local governing bodies, that generates greater support, accountability, and professional- and social-capital.
Jenn Plews and Helen Murphy were the living embodiment of thriving governance. As I watched them talk so passionately about their joint commitment to sustainability and their efforts to deliver on this for their community, the word that kept coming to mind was ‘synergy’ and they really emphasised the importance of this synergy between the CEO and the Chair of the Board in securing thriving governance. Their collaboration so clearly ensures strategic alignment across their trust and effective decision-making, and unified leadership. I could see that their professional relationship is built on trust and their organisational success and resilience is being secured by leveraging their combined expertise and vision for sustainability.
There is something else too though, it’s the way in which they are allowing governance to be more fluid, open to new ways of working though different governance structures, and the way that they are ensuring those that have most invested in sustainability, children, have not only a voice but a formal opportunity to question and hold to account executives and trustees alike. Now that is intelligent accountability.
I believe I was seeing evolution in governance right in front of me, so call to action number two:
Call to action two: Invigorate your governance process by developing a Board or committee where the children and young people in your trust can hold you directly to account for your actions.
Principle Three: create the culture, capacity and systems for school improvement at scale
I really enjoyed watching the dynamics between the executives at Greenwood Academies Trust and the way in which they exemplified two of my long-held beliefs. Firstly, as CEO you need to be ‘expert enough’ in all things, but it is the executive team collectively that needs to be THE expert, especially in the core business of school improvement. And secondly, as a CEO with an educational background, we do need to have the discipline and confidence to let other people do it. As we scale, it cannot remain our domain because we have an organisation to run. I think the way that Wayne demonstrated his expert knowledge about improvement at scale (thus expert enough) but then literally got off the stage to demonstrate it as somebody else’s responsibility to deliver on it was a priceless, symbolic message.
The business of school-to-school improvement at scale is a tricky subject because we all have strong views about it and different ideas about how we can best go about it (I certainly do). I was therefore curious about how I would respond to another large trust’s approach to this. In the end it prompted several thoughts. Firstly, the importance of codifying our adopted model for improvement so that it provides a clear, structured framework for enhancing educational provision and outcomes. That through this codification we need to secure consistency in implementation, helping our practitioners follow best practices and strategies effectively and that we need to make sure this codification facilitates accountability and measurable progress, allowing for the identification and replication of successful initiatives. We also need to ensure it promotes a shared vision and understanding among all our stakeholders, fostering a collaborative effort towards continuous improvement.
Again, however, there is something else here (and there was a funny moment at the symposium when a CEO and I had the same thought and quoted the same 80s band – Bananarama’s ‘It ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it!) and that is that there isn’t a one size fits all model to school improvement at scale (the Greenwood approach is different to the Forum improvement at scale model, and the one my own trust developed) and that the really crucial thing here is that it’s the ‘how’ of implementing the model that is so crucial. I was really struck by how the executives at Greenwood were really committed to making sure that their schools feel they are partners in the process, retain some self-determination and a degree of autonomy.
It’s precisely because there isn’t a one size fits all model to this that my third call to action is about professional generosity:
Call to action three: Share your codified improvement model so that those colleagues in the process of designing and determining their own, can draw upon great practice from across the sector.
Principle Four: Being an employer of choice
My reflections on being an employer of choice are short, but very sweet because I learned so much from Jonny Uttley sharing his approach to this crucial challenge for everyone in the sector. His presentation was packed with perceptive insight and great advice. The first of which was to understand that retention is as important as recruitment in not only tackling the crisis we currently face in the sector, but also in maintaining organisational stability and growth and that by nurturing and retaining skilled employees, we can reduce turnover costs and sustain institutional knowledge. Moreover, if we keep staff, they contribute to our long-term success by building cohesive teams and maintaining consistency in our work.
The simple yet profound concept of thinking about the ‘lived experience’ of staff really resonated with me and that it isn’t always the actual amount of work that staff are concerned with but the perception of their workload that is important. To me there is so much humanity in his comment ‘we will serve our communities but not at the cost of our staff, or the children of our staff. We can do both.’ (He made a joke about CEOs chasing gongs and Knighthoods etc, well I say give him one for that comment alone!)
Jonny gave us a masterclass in how to promote staff wellbeing and he recognised that this is dependent, of course, on a trust’s resources and he was in a fortunate position, but such great ideas as ‘insisting’ that staff attend their children’s school events, thereby removing the guilt, and flipping the dial on performance management and assuming success and therefore pay progression and that ‘unearning your pay rise’ is the way to go because the vast majority of staff do perform well. Perfect!
You will have heard of ‘bromance’. Well, I would have a ’ceomance’ if only Jonny hadn’t spoiled it all by showing us he’s human and going to a Taylor Swift concert. (Still can’t name one song). Forgiving this, the fourth call to action is clear:
Call to action four: Identify at least two practical ways in which you can improve the lived experience of the staff in your trust.
Principle Five: Maximising resources and working to a sustainable future for the benefit of all pupils
When I introduced Katrina Morley at the symposium, I intimated that she had the ‘toughest gig’ because, in a cash starved sector, her brief was to talk about maximising funds and resources. Well, it might have been the toughest gig, but she certainly blew it out of the park. I don’t have enough space to talk about all the things I liked about what she had to say, suffice to say it was an incredibly original and thought-provoking contribution. What I really liked about it, is that she brought a different mindset to the age-old challenge. Any response that includes investing in creativity has to signal a different approach. Katrina did, of course, refer to those strategies with which we are all too familiar, income generation through partnerships and school and trust level activities, garnering time and expertise from people and organisations through a beg steal and borrow approach (her words!) and getting involved in government and local authority ‘initiatives’ like partnership boards, regeneration opportunities and so on. And she referred to those interminable bids we all have to make to various organisations.
But she also provoked our thinking on a much deeper level. Two areas in particular for me. One, in adopting a long-term investment mindset, asking us to live with the short-term challenges we face and to deal with them and to adopt a 100-year legacy mindset and the other, to broaden our understanding of what ‘resources’ and ‘returns’ are. I particularly like this latter aspect and when Katrina started referring to getting thought, learning and ideas back as returns for investment of time and energy, it was a light bulb moment for me. Of course, it’s all about ‘value’ to the organisation as much as it is about physical resources. This is really sophisticated thinking folks and when it was all rounded off with an invitation to see our efforts as an investment in the future and opportunity to ‘pay it forward’ then I knew we were listening to someone with a deep commitment to future generations. Bravo.
And in thinking about a call to action, what better way to top and tail our time as CEO than to start with public promises as per Steve Munby’s advice and finish with the legacy we leave to reflect Katrina’s thinking, and so:
Call to action five: Write a 100-year legacy statement that captures the realisation of your trust’s vision
Principle Six: Academy trusts at the heart of our communities, providing a focal point for strategic partnerships that maximise opportunities for children, staff and schools across an area
It’s always good to finish a day long symposium on a high, and that’s what happened with the humorous and engaging presentation from Adrian Rogers and Sufian Sadiq. I laughed out loud at the way they teased each other and marvelled at their obvious mutual enjoyment of their professional relationship. Beneath the humour and light heartedness though, were some very important messages about creating thriving communities and partnerships. There were some things that reinforced what we all believe because of our own experience, primarily that integration and involvement with the communities we serve will positively impact on our core business of securing great pupil outcomes, but this contribution made me question how well we really know our communities, how well we can genuinely empathise with the challenges they face and how we can get beyond the superficiality that is a feature of too many of the relationships and partnerships we forge. I often lay this challenge to CEOs ‘How well do you know your schools?’ Adrian and Sufian challenged us with ‘How well do you know the communities you serve?’ Fortunately, they gave us some great examples of how to do this, so the call to action here is:
Call to action six: Join or forge a new partnership with a person or organisation that centres you more fully in your community to get a deeper understanding of how you can best serve them.
So, let me bring these musings on the symposium to a close with a bold statement: professional generosity in sharing knowledge, learning and experience has the potential to be the saviour of the education sector. Because we can use it to build a supportive community that accelerates professional growth, addresses challenges more effectively and ensures equity for all those we serve. Let’s pay that forward.
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