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Accountability
Appraising the CEO
Governor Elaine Green says
that those appraising leaders
need to develop within
themselves more resilient
judgment skills
Currently a governor at an independent school, I have
also served as a community governor. My professional
background is HR, now working as a member of the
employment law team at Steeles Law.
Given my professional interest, I am taxed (and sometimes
‘tasked’) as a governor to consider how best to appraise the
Headteacher (for which please read ‘Principal’ or ‘CEO’).
I ask myself primarily, what do I expect of the CEO and how
might I assess individual performance against that expectation?
Formally, and rather pointedly, leadership responsibility
is assigned to the senior leadership team, regardless of the
leadership capabilities of the individual team members.
Practically, leadership activity is not exclusive to this group, but
is a competence of all involved in educating and teamworking.
Maybe, when appraising the CEO, we need to look at how s/he
draws out the potential of all the leaders, movers and shakers
across the school to the students’ advantage.
In a report recently published by the Chartered Institute of
Personnel and Development (CIPD) leadership is described
as ‘the process of influencing others to understand and agree
about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of
facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared
objectives’. Management is the formal process of administration,
planning and organising processes or people.
I want our CEO to be good at all of these activities, even if
we were unable to test against all of them at the recruiting stage.
I invite all governors to determine how they might assess and
develop good management competency across the whole role.
Attributes we might consider are:
• Professional leader/expert
• Motivating
• Innovative
• Playing to the strengths of others
• Adaptable management and communicating style
• Ensuring everyone achieves deadlines and targets
• Champion of the school’s values
• Assessing/developing the potential of others
• Managing well-being
• Role model
• Conducting difficult conversations to good effect
• Compliance with standards/regulations
• Managing conflict
• Delegating effectively
• Financial/business competence
Schools, indeed individual governors, may have their own list
that looks something like this. We expect a CEO competency
of working through others to run alongside the completion
of assigned tasks and objectives. Senior roles carry both taskoriented
and people-oriented responsibilities and the CIPD
reports that employees expect behaviours of empathy and caring
from a leader.
Yet the CIPD cites a tension between achieving objectives and
46 | Summer 2014