The Art of Governing Well: What Structure Alone Can't Do
Third in a three-part series on Coherent Governance® and what it means for school board leadership
In the first two posts of this series, we made the case for governance structure as a strategic lever and walked through the four policy areas at the heart of Coherent Governance®. If you’ve read this far, you may be convinced, or at least intrigued, that a more deliberate approach to board governance is worth exploring.
But there’s something we haven’t talked about yet, and it’s the part that governance consultants Linda Dawson and Randy Quinn call the art of good governance. It’s also the part that is hardest to teach and easiest to underestimate.
Structure, Policies, Framework
Relatively straightforward to put in place. Once a board commits, the work of developing policies, clarifying roles, and aligning monitoring processes is demanding but tractable.
People, Discipline, Relationships
Something else entirely. It involves the individuals at the board table, their discipline, their relationships, their willingness to subordinate personal agendas to the common good.
“No system of governance is any better than the people who are at the table.”
Linda Dawson & Randy Quinn, Aspen Group InternationalWhat the Art Actually Requires
Think for a moment about what it takes for a board member to operate consistently within a Coherent Governance framework. It requires resisting the impulse to weigh in on operational decisions, even when you have an opinion and the expertise to back it up. It requires trusting that the superintendent will make sound decisions within the guardrails the board established, and that the monitoring process will surface problems if they arise.
It requires the discipline to bring dissenting views to the board table rather than to the community, the press, or individual staff members. And it requires the ability to vote no on a motion and then, having lost, to support the majority decision as a member of a governing unit.
These things sound reasonable in the abstract. They are genuinely difficult in practice, particularly for public school board members who are elected with strong community mandates and often have deep personal investment in the outcomes their districts produce.
The Conditions That Most Commonly Cause a Governance Model to Fail
Notice that none of these failure conditions are about the structure being wrong. They are all about the people who have to make the structure work.
When the Art and Science Converge
The science and the art are not independent of each other. A well-designed governance structure actually makes the art easier. When roles are clear, trust grows. When the board’s job is explicitly defined, individual board members have a framework for redirecting their own impulses. When monitoring replaces approval as the board’s primary accountability mechanism, the superintendent can lead with confidence rather than managing upward.
The structure creates conditions that support the behaviors. And the behaviors, over time, reinforce commitment to the structure. This is why boards that have been working within a Coherent Governance framework for several years often describe it not as a model they are implementing, but as simply how they govern.
Self-Assessment as a Starting Point
One of the most practical things any board can do, regardless of its current governance model, is engage in regular, honest self-assessment. Not the kind of perfunctory annual review that produces no useful information, but a structured, data-informed process that asks board members to reflect individually on how the board is functioning and then surfaces patterns in those reflections for collective examination.
Where do board members see alignment in how they understand the board’s role? Where do they see gaps? Where is the board’s attention going, and where should it be going? What is the quality of the relationship with the superintendent?
These conversations are often the beginning of the shift. They surface what everyone already knows but rarely says out loud. And they create the shared language and shared understanding that governance development requires.
The EES-Board Self-Assessment
The EES-Board Self-Assessment, offered through the Center for Educational Effectiveness, provides exactly this kind of structured reflection. It is not a performance evaluation. It is a mirror. And like any useful mirror, what it shows you is only valuable if you are willing to look.
An Invitation to Keep Learning
This series has covered a lot of ground: the case for governance structure as a strategic lever, the four policy areas of Coherent Governance®, and the human dimensions that determine whether any governance system actually works. What it hasn’t done, and can’t do in three blog posts, is substitute for the experience of learning alongside other boards who are doing this work.
That experience is what Wisdom Sharing/26 offers.
Wisdom Sharing/26
The Center for Educational Effectiveness and Aspen Group International are hosting the only annual conference in the United States exclusively for Coherent Governance® practitioners and boards exploring the model.
Attending is not a commitment to overhaul your governance model. It is a commitment to taking seriously the question of whether your board is set up to do the work that only a governing board can do, and to learning alongside others who are asking the same question.