Would you benefit from a listening ear?

If you’ve recently stepped into the role of chair, whether in a trust or a maintained school, it can be daunting. Getting support from someone who’s been there before can be really beneficial.

We recently caught up with Sarah Miller, chair of Central Schools Trust in the West Midlands, to find out about how mentoring from  Independent Governor Support (IGovS), a charity offering free and independent support to boards, has helped her in her role as a new chair of trustees.

How did you hear about IGovS and what made you decide to reach out to them?

I came across IGovS through The Hoot and realised their free mentoring is something I might benefit from so I got in touch with them via the contact form on their website.

As vice-chair I was very active, working closely with, and frequently stepping in for, our chair and leading in many different ways. However, it felt like the responsible thing to do when becoming chair of a trust that’s on the verge of expansion, to seek out some guidance and support, especially from someone with more experience.

I was looking for a peer-to-peer relationship where I could be completely open and honest. I was looking for a space where I could let the mask slip a bit and explore some of the challenges in more detail - something that’s not always possible in meetings. You’re the chair, the rest of the board is looking to you for leadership. 

How did it work? Did you get the kind of relationship you were looking for from being mentored?

Yes. I was assigned someone from IGovS with relevant experience, Sean Westaway, who’d been the founding chair of a trust that had since merged and expanded, so a particularly useful skill set given my situation.

Our initial meeting was really long and we explored what Sean could help us with as well as some of the gaps in my skills or experience and ideas about how we could fill those gaps. For this and subsequent meetings, I would go away and implement some of the things we’d talked about and then we’d have a follow-up feedback session. Although we’ve had 3 or 4 of these longer online conversations, a lot of our communication is over email. The kind of support Sean’s been able to offer me has been huge and very, very varied. It can involve just a quick question on, say, ‘have you heard about this before?’ and if Sean hadn’t, he could go away and tap into his network too to see if anyone else had heard.

When we had our external review of governance, I was able to send it to Sean and say, ‘Well - what do you think about this? How do you think we’re doing?’ I could get an additional layer of reassurance and pointers for the future from someone who’s carried out external reviews themselves.

The support has helped us to become more proactive and less reactive, if that makes sense. So we’re ahead of problems rather than catching up to try to fix them.

Would you say your governance is more effective as a result of the support you’ve received?

Definitely. It’s given me the confidence to push on ahead. It’s not so much that Sean has told me what to do. It’s more about empowerment and using his mentoring to reflect on different approaches. One of the biggest challenges I hear from other would-be chairs is that they find the accountability quite daunting, being that person at the top of the ladder. 

Yet if more people knew IGovS existed and understood their support, they might not be so hesitant to progress.

I’m doing a chairs course at the moment and there are a few vice chairs who’re considering stepping up but they’re struggling with imposter syndrome and if they knew they had someone they could email or get support from, it would really help.

If someone is reading this and perhaps they’re an existing chair but they’re not aware of IGovS, what would you say to them?

There are so many resources out there if you look for them and do your research. The key thing is that you have somebody to talk to, somebody who’s willing to be that sounding board. That’s one thing that IGovS has done for me. They’ve given me the confidence to lead with conviction and signposted me to all of the relevant resources.

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