Returning to a Renewed Community Life in Our Schools – Lisa Mahar

Returning to a Renewed Community Life in Our Schools: 

Four Keys to help regain Vibrance 

 

Lisa Mahar is a co-director of the Art of Administration summer training program of Leading with Spirit., offering  week-long administrative training  focused on the foundations of Waldorf education, explorations in school governance, school communication, meeting facilitation, roles and responsibilities, community building, leadership development, collaboration, and more.

 

As Longer, warmer days and the tentative emergence of buds and blossoms let us know that spring is underway and we are happily anticipating our return to community celebrations and festival life after many months of limited contact, modified events, and sustained precautions,  many school leaders are facing the reality that large portions of their student bodies and their parent bodies have yet to experience the full rhythm and richness of our Waldorf community celebrations, festivals, special events, and school traditions.  

 

While reintroducing a renewal of community life promises the special kind of refreshment, nourishment, and sustenance we long for, we are presented with a unique opportunity and challenge to pause and ask

How do we best renew our community activities?  

What new opportunities present themselves for a full refreshment of community life?  

How might we adopt and incorporate our ongoing and meaningful work aimed at broadening circles of inclusion and welcome?  

Which traditions still pulse with life, and which are ready to become meaningful memories of a past time?  

What new events and celebrations are peeking over the cradle’s rim ready to be taken up?

 

Each school community will answer these questions in its own way.  What follows are some reflections and insights from the work of Jorgen Smit on elements that make up a healthy, vibrant, balanced community life.  Schools might find these insights useful as they plan for a full return to community life.

 

Jorgen Smit, a long time Waldorf teacher and anthroposophist,  studied human community and observed human relationships. He developed his observations and experiences into a picture of the healthy human social organism, based on four dynamics of community life: Warmth, Initiative, Form, and Continuity.  When each of these four  dynamics is present and lively and when these dynamics are actively and consciously balanced and rebalanced, a living and vibrant sense of community carries us all. (See a brief introduction to Jorgen Smit below)

 

Consider these four elements and your own school community.

 

Warmth

Community warmth creates an atmosphere of welcome, of extension toward the other, of striving for connection. Warmth is interest, curiosity. Warmth flows through and breaks down any separation between the long-time members of the community and the brand-new ones.  Warmth brings a sense of welcome, comfort, acceptance, enthusiasm.  Diversity, and its essential companion, inclusion, thrive in a community permeated by human warmth. In such a community, even challenges are welcomed because they often generate “heat” in our human connections.   Warmth is a necessary condition for growth, raying out and engaging those it touches.

 

Initiative

Proposing, exploring, and manifesting new approaches demonstrate a commitment to our healthy future. Initiative asks questions, is willing to experiment and takes risks. Balanced with warmth, form, and continuity, it’s the fuel that moves a community forward.   Vibrant wholeness and energy characterize communities friendly to initiative. A school community that works to sense the future welcomes initiative from all quarters, including from new teachers, new staff members, and new parents, and from the students themselves.  After all, our new and our young community companions bring us the gift of fresh eyes. When balanced with warmth, form, and continuity we find initiative to be an inspiring energizer keeping us fresh and engaged.

 

Form

Form is the structure of the community and its policies, procedures, protocols. Form reflects our living values, what is important to us. It holds us up and holds us together.  If we are committed to professional development for teachers, our budget should support it. If we are committed to financial accessibility for all, our tuition policies should make that possible. If we are committed to diversity and inclusion, our curriculum, staffing, enrollment, festivals, and celebrations reflect these commitments. We experience form in a framework: our values lead to principles; principles lead to policies; policies lead to practices. Form has a sturdiness and durability to it. We can count on it. Form is, of course, open to transform, yet it is, at best, the set of firm yet supple golden threads that weave our school community together.

 

Continuity

Continuity embraces and continually refreshes what is valuable, inspiring, what works.  It lives in community rhythms, predictability, tradition, and the honoring of history. Continuity is carrying forward what is lively and true.  Continuity gives new ideas time and space to work.  Continuity is sensing and celebrating what we can rightly rely on: it was, it is, it will be. This is a gift for our children, a source of strength, trust, and security. Dynamic continuity calls us to be attentive, perceptive, and especially awake, avoiding doing a thing because “we’ve always done it”.

 

Warmth,  initiative, form, continuity, these four elements are guiding lights illuminating the path of community health and well-being. We can ask ourselves: Are all of these elements present in our school community? Which element are we especially good at? Does one or another need to be strengthened? How does each manifest in the life of the school?  Are these elements well-balanced with one another? Are there groups or individuals especially gifted in holding one or more of these elements?  Where do we see opportunities for further growth and development of warmth, initiative, continuity, and form?

 

In this new moment we are offered a unique opportunity: returning to fuller expression of a vibrant community life.  With a nod to the thoughtful work of Jorgen Smit, we look forward to making the most of the compelling possibilities that lay ahead.  Kind thoughts to all as you examine, strengthen, and renew your community relationships and deepen your school culture now and for our future.  Happy Spring!

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Jorgen Smit (1916 – 1991) was a Waldorf Educator—a class teacher, trainer of teachers, international pedagogical leader, and one of the founders of the anthroposophical center in Jarna, Sweden, which now includes a teacher education seminar, a cultural center, hospital, school, biodynamic farm, dairy, and the international Youth Initiative Program (YIP). Jorgen Smit was a warm–hearted, compassionate human being, deeply interested in others.  He inspired many young people to pursue careers of service in Waldorf Education and other anthroposophically based initiatives. Stories abound of his interest in others, his humor, curiosity, and encouraging guidance.

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To learn more about Leading with Spirit and our July 2022 summer course offerings in the Art of Administration, please visit Leading with Spirit or reach out to Lisa Mahar at lisamahar5@gmail.com.

 

Renewing Governance

Renewing Governance

More and more organizations are seeking to find new governance structures and practices that support a balance between individual creativity and organizational harmony and effectiveness. This was the case 100 years ago when the first Waldorf School was founded. In the past 100 years, we have had the benefit of a great deal of work and insight into the nature, function and development of organizations. Rudolf Steiner offered some keen insights into social development that are still relevant and useful today. In addition, Bernard Lievegoed, the dynamic student of Steiner's, head of the Anthroposophical movement in Netherlands and inspired thinker, trainer, and author worked with this question his whole life and was part of the new world wide movement to bring new insights into understanding organizations and their development. Following on Lievegoed's work, the Waldorf movement in the last 50 years has pioneered new collaborative models of organization and governance. The Center for Social Development in England and the work of Chris Schaefer and others there and in the US have contributed a great deal to the understanding of the dynamics of governance.  New models like Dynamic Governance, Holocracy, and Policy Governance are also examples of responses to this question that continue to offer new ideas about collaborative organizations.. Frederic Laloux, in his book, “Reinventing Organizations”, provides us with another deeper look at a new emerging paradigm in collaborative organizations.

 

The articles in this newsletter offer a variety of insights on the topic of governance – from understanding basic principles of governance and knowing the basic types of governance models, to looking at effective practices in Waldorf Schools and delving deeper into anthroposophical insights into social creation.

 

The images for this newsletter are pictures of tree trunks – each quite beautiful and unique and each serving a similar function – to protect, nurture and support the tree’s growth. Trees stand as a structural element of the forest, much like governance is a structural element in organizations.  -MS-

Understanding Governance by Michael Soule

Understanding Governance by Michael Soule

 

Every organization struggles with the question of how to establish and maintain good governance.

Even the definition of  governance can be a challenge. Just like the descriptors  “environmental” or “sustainable” can mean different things, so too can the term “governance”.

Nevertheless, we as leaders must constantly strive to understand and improve the governance in our organizations.

Here are five essential tools to help leaders understand, nurture, and transform their organization’s governance.

 

  1. Know the difference between governance and management.

When you begin to sort out your governance structure, this will help you be clear and avoid too much overlap between different groups. Management, in a nutshell, has to do with operations, and governance has to do with structure, roles and responsibilities, but the differences go deeper than this. (See the article in our resources section.)

 

  1. Know the different basic types of governance models.

Understanding the principles of different models will help you be smart in defining your own

path, deciding when your organization needs to change or choosing a prescribed model. Below is a good outline that explores the different types and some of the possibilities and challenges of each.

 

  1. Know the history of governance in your organization.

Understanding the biography of your organization and its path of governance will give you insights into the potential future. There are many ways to approach this. This is often the first step in any major capital campaign and an important part of renewing your mission statement.

 

  1. Know the capacities of the people currently in the organization.

Understanding the capacities of each other will help you create roles and responsibilities that fit your particular situation. Spending time regularly to share individual biographies and life stories, to share personal and professional goals and to share self-assessments can help strengthen this.

 

  1. Be very clear about specific roles and responsibilities and the relationship between individuals and groups in the organization.

Overlapping roles and unclear roles are two of the primary areas that cause difficulties in an organization. There are also various ways to work on this – practicing the basics of a mandate organization (See article in the resource section) to implementing a RACI model are two promising ways.

 

The Heart of Governance: Agreements

 

An organization’s governance system is primarily a set of agreements. The organization’s success depends upon the nature of those agreements, including how they come about, how they are maintained and how they are reviewed and renewed. Agreements (like job descriptions, committee mandates, bylaws, mission statements, polices, handbooks, etc) are best when they:

 

  • Reflect the organization’s values and mission and help people feel connected to the whole organization.

 

  • Are clearly written, regularly reviewed and revised with the participation of those they effect.

 

  • Identify the pathways for collaboration and communication and outline processes for navigating changes

 

Understanding the importance of agreements and the role they play in the governance can bring great clarity to the leadership of an organization.

 

In the end, whether you follow a specific governance model or whether you create a hybrid form that meets your unique needs and skills, the underlying keys to success are the agreements that you are able to articulate, follow and renew. Personal relationships may carry the organization forward for a while but when life changes, the ways in which you have articulated the qualities of those relationships in the structural documents of your governance will be a guiding wisdom that will allow for health to continue in the organization.

 

Good governance is like good leadership; it is relational, responsive and self-aware. It strengthens relationships and a sense of community, building connection and trust. It builds confidence when it responds to needs in a direct and timely way. It creates a culture of self awareness and reflection that supports continual meaningful development.

Governance Models, An Essay by Nathan Garber with Reflections by Michael Soule

Reflections on Nathan Garber’s Article on Governance Models

The article below by Nathan Garber is a good review and summary of the basic typical models of governance in organizations and the role that boards play in the different models. In Waldorf schools, there are many variations of governance models with most following a variation on the cooperative board model. All of the models below depend upon clearly articulated lines of authority and strong leadership. In the Cooperative model, like in most Waldorf schools the leadership is more dispersed throughout the organization. The keys to success in a dispersed leadership organization is the strength of the designated leadership Council (often the College in the Waldorf school) that acts similarly to the role of the CEO in other organizations. Garber points out very accurately the key downside to cooperative governance – the inability to assure accountability between peers. The Sociocracy and Holocracy models described elsewhere in Leadtogether newsletter, and the book by Frederic Laloux, “Reinventing Organizations” all offer ways that organizations can be more collaborative and overcome the lack of natural accountability. For more on how to assure accountability, see LeadTogether Newsletter #10. – Michael Soule

 

Governance Models:
What's Right for Your Board

by Nathan Garber

Introduction

Nonprofit boards tend to follow one of five different approaches to governance. Each approach emphasizes different dimensions of the roles and responsibilities of the board and each arises out of a different relationship between board members and staff members. These in turn reflect differences in the size, purpose, and history of the organization. I call these approaches the Advisory, the Patron Model, the Co-operative model, the Management Team Model, and the Policy Board Model. I conclude with some questions to ask when you are considering changing your board structure.

Advisory Board Model

This model emphasizes the helping and supportive role of the Board and frequently occurs where the CEO is the founder of the organization. The Board's role is primarily that of helper/advisor to the CEO. Board members are recruited for three main reasons: they are trusted as advisors by the CEO; they have a professional skill that the organization needs but does not want to pay for; they are likely to be helpful in establishing the credibility of the organization for fundraising and public relations purposes.

Individual board members may be quite active in performing these functions and consequently feel that they are making a valuable contribution to the organization. Board meetings tend to be informal and task-focused, with the agenda developed by the CEO.

The Advisory Board model can work well for a short time in many organizations but it exposes the board members to significant liability in that it fails to provide the accountability mechanisms that are required of boards of directors. By law, the board has the obligation to manage the affairs of the organization and can be held accountable for certain actions of employees and committees. It must therefore maintain a superior position to the CEO. Although the board is permitted to delegate many of its responsibilities to staff or committees, it cannot make itself subordinate to them.

Patron Model

Similar to the Advisory Board model, the board of directors in the Patron Model has even less influence over the organization than an advisory board. Composed of wealthy and influential individuals with a commitment to the mission of the organization, the Patron Board serves primarily as a figurehead for fund raising purposes. Such boards meet infrequently as their real work is done outside board meetings. Writing cheques and getting their friends to write cheques is their contribution to the organization.

Many organizations maintain a Patron Board in addition to their governing boards. For capital campaigns and to establish credibility of a newly formed organizations, Patron Boards can be especially helpful. They cannot be relied upon, however, for governance tasks such as vision development, organizational planning, or program monitoring.

Co-operative Model

For a number of different reasons, some organizations try to avoid hierarchical structures. The decision-making structure in such organizations is typically labeled "peer management" or "collective management". In this model, all responsibility is shared and there is no Chief Executive Officer. Decision-making is normally by consensus and no individual has power over another. If the law did not require it, they would not have a board of directors at all. In order to be incorporated, however, there must be a board of directors and officers. The organization therefore strives to fit the board of directors into its organizational philosophy by creating a single managing/governing body composed of official board members, staff members, volunteers, and sometimes clients.

Seen by its advocates as the most democratic style of management, it is also, perhaps, the most difficult of all models to maintain, requiring among other things, a shared sense of purpose, an exceptional level of commitment by all group members, a willingness to accept personal responsibility for the work of others, and an ability to compromise. When working well, the organization benefits from the direct involvement of front-line workers in decision-making and the synergy and camaraderie created by the interaction of board and staff.

I have noted two areas of concern with this model. The first is that although the ability to compromise is an essential element in the successful functioning of this model, cooperatives often arise out of a strong ideological or philosophical commitment that can be inimical to compromise. The second concern is the difficulty of implementing effective accountability structures. At the time of implementing this model, there may be a high motivation level in the organization, which obviates the need for accountability mechanisms. But, as personnel changes take place, the sense of personal commitment to the group as a whole may be lost. In the collective model, there is no effective way to ensure that accountability for individual actions is maintained.

Management Team Model

For many years, most nonprofit organizations have been run by boards, which operate according to the model of a Management Team, organizing their committees and activities along functional lines. In larger organizations, the structure of the board and its committees usually mirrors the structure of the organization's administration. Just as there are staff responsible for human resources, fund-raising, finance, planning, and programs, the board creates committees with responsibility for these areas.

Where there is no paid staff, the board's committee structure becomes the organization's administrative structure and the board members are also the managers and delivers of programs and services. Individually or in committees, board members take on all governance, management and operational tasks including strategic planning, bookkeeping, fund-raising, newsletter, and program planning and implementation.

The widespread adoption of the Management Team model, arises out its correspondence with modern ideas about team management and democratic structures in the workplace. It also fits well with the widely held view of nonprofits as volunteer-driven or at least nonprofessional organizations. This model fits well with the experience of many people as volunteers in community groups like service clubs, Home and School groups, scouts and guides, and hobby groups. It also mirrors the processes involved in the creation of a new organization or service. It is no wonder then, that most prescriptive books and articles written between 1970 and 1990 (and many written more recently) define this model as the ideal.

Boards which operate under the Management Team model are characterized by a high degree of involvement in the operational and administrative activities of the organization. In organizations with professional management this normally takes the form of highly directive supervision of the CEO and staff at all levels of the organization. Structurally, there may be many committees and subcommittees. Decision-making extends to fine details about programs, services, and administrative practices. When working well, two criteria tend to be used in the selection of members: their knowledge and experience in a specific field, such as business or accounting; or because they are members of a special interest group or sector that the board considers to be stakeholders.

While this model works well for all-volunteer organizations, it has proven to be less suited to organizations that already have professional management and full-time employees. Indeed, the deficiencies of this model have led to the current thinking in the field which differentiates "governance" (the practices of boards of directors) from "management" (the practices of employees) and the deluge of research, articles, and manuals on this topic.

The most important shortcoming is that all too frequently, it degenerates into what I call the Micro-management Team Model in which board members refuse to delegate authority, believing that their role requires them to make all operational decisions, leaving only the implementation to paid staff. The result is invariably a lack of consistency in decisions, dissatisfied board members, resentful staff and a dangerous lack of attention to planning and accountability matters.

Policy Board Model

As noted above, the need to differentiate the board's role from the manager's role arose from the failure of many organizations to maintain proper accountability at the highest levels and the dissatisfaction of many board members over the their inability to comply with the expectations of their role. They began to ask why, when they were such competent and accomplished individuals, they felt so ineffective and frustrated as board members. This led to an examination of the role of the board, the relationship between the board and the CEO, and the relationship between the board and the community.

The originator and most influential proponent of the Policy Board Model is John Carver, whose book, Boards that Make a Difference, has had a great effect on thousands of nonprofit organizations. All Policy Board Models share the view that the job of the board is: to establish the guiding principles and policies for the organization; to delegate responsibility and authority to those who are responsible for enacting the principles and policies; to monitor compliance with those guiding principles and policies; to ensure that staff, and board alike are held accountable for their performance.

Where the models diverge is the way these jobs are done and the extent to which strategic planning and fundraising as are seen as board jobs.

Boards operating under the Policy Board Model are characterized by a high level of trust and confidence in the CEO. There are relatively few standing committees, resulting in more meetings of the full board. Board development is given a high priority in order to ensure that new members are able to function effectively, and recruitment is an ongoing process. Members are recruited for their demonstrated commitment to the values and mission of the organization.

Which Model is the Right One?

There are a number of reasons for considering a change in your governance model:

  • board members are dissatisfied with their roles or the way the board operates;
  • your organization is experiencing problems that can be traced back to inadequacies in board structure or process;
  • your organization is entering a new phase in its life-cycle;
  • the CEO has left or is leaving;
  • there has been a major turnover of board members;
  • there is a crisis of confidence in the board or the CEO.

The descriptions above, of the various governance models, will give you an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of each model, but the difficulty in making the transition cannot be overstated. Changing models is like changing lifestyles. You must abandon well-established ideas and patterns of behavior, replacing them with new ideas, roles, and activities that will seem confusing and unfamiliar. This type of change takes a considerable amount of time, energy, and other resources to accomplish. The answers to the following questions will help you to determine how badly you need to change your governance model and whether your board and organization have the necessary commitment and resources to accomplish it successfully. Take your time with each question, ensuring that each board member answers each question.

  • Do we have a clear understanding and agreement on the purpose of our organization? Is it written down?
  • What are the basic values which guide our organization and our board? Are they written down?
  • How do we know whether the good our organization does is worth what it costs to operate it?
  • What financial resources do we have and can we reasonably count on for the next few years?
  • To what extent are board members expected to contribute money and labor to fundraising efforts?
  • Do we believe that the organization should be run as a cooperative or collective - with staff participating along with board members in the governing of the organization?
  • How much time is each board member willing to give to the organization in the next year (or until the end of their term)
  • How much trust does the board have in the ability of the CEO to ensure that the organization operates in an effective and ethical manner?
  • What are our expectations about attendance at board and committee meetings?
  • What is the attendance record of each board member?
  • How do we hold board members accountable?
  • What is the record of each board member and committee with respect to meetings and results?
  • How useful has each committee proven to be?
  • To what extent do committees duplicate staff jobs? How satisfied are our members with the current board performance?
  • Who thinks we should change our governance model?
  • How much time and money are we willing to devote to increasing our own knowledge and skills to improve our performance as board members?
  • How does our board deal with differences of opinion?
  • How do members deal with decisions when we disagree?
  • To what extent is it necessary for us (board members) to be involved in the delivery of programs and services, marketing, public speaking, etc.
  • Who attends our Annual General Meeting? Why do they come?
  • As board members, to whom do we wish to be accountable?
  • How effective is our current recruitment method in getting excellent board members?

Take some time to consider these questions. The answers will tell you the degree of difficulty you will have in changing to a new governance model and where the problems lie. For additional information and for training and consulting services related to governance models, contact: Nathan Garber & Associates email: nathan@GarberConsulting.com

© 1997, Nathan Garber. Permission is hereby granted to reprint this article in part or in total provided that the author is acknowledged.

Self Administration and Governance in Waldorf Schools, Chris Schaefer

III

 

Self-Administration and Governance in Waldorf Schools

 

Seek the real practical life but seek it in a way that does not blind you to the spirit working in it. Seek the spirit but do not seek it out of spiritual egoism, from spiritual greed, but look for it because you want to apply it unselfishly in practical life, in the material world. Make use of the ancient principle: Spirit is never without matter, matter never without spirit.

– Rudolf Steiner

 

 

On April 23, 1919, Emil Molt, the owner of the Waldorf Astoria

Cigarette Factory in Stuttgart, Germany, asked Rudolf Steiner to take on the planning and leadership of a school. Steiner agreed, and on September 15, the first Waldorf School opened with 256 children and eight grades. The school was founded in connection to Steiner’s movement for the Threefold Social Order and was to be independent of state control and self-administered. “The school, therefore, will have its own administration run on a republican basis and will not be

Administered from above. We must not lean back and rest securely on the orders of a headmaster; we must be a republic of teachers and kindle in ourselves the strength that will enable us to do what we have to do with full responsibility.”1

From these statements three principles emerge about self- administration: Schools must be free of state control as part of a free cultural life, teachers must be centrally involved in the running of the school and in decision making, and the school should be organized along republican principles in which teachers are equal but delegate specific responsibilities to individuals and committees. So Waldorf schools from the very beginning had a non-hierarchical social form in

 

which individuals had to work on their relationships and experience the working of social and antisocial forces in themselves and in others.

In addition Steiner sought to integrate ideals from his work on broader social issues into the running of the first school. Salaries were not position- or job-based but needs based, meaning that they reflected the prevailing sense of equity in the school community. Teachers with more dependents received higher salaries than those without, and neither degrees nor length of service played into the financial support received. As the Stuttgart school was initially financed by the Waldorf Astoria factory and Emil Molt personally, tuitions were not charged to workers’ children, although families from outside the factory paid what they could. It was hoped that as the Waldorf School Movement grew, local, regional and world school associations would develop in order to provide the financial support for an independent school movement. For Steiner it was not only a question of providing support for independent Waldorf schools but to demonstrate the principles of a free cultural

life supported by the profits of economic life. “I am convinced that nothing is more important for the social development of humanity

than the foundation of such a world association of schools which would then awaken a real sense for a free cultural life and spiritual life in the widest circle of people.”2 Such a World School Association was never created and Waldorf schools have become tuition-dependent (in the United States, Britain, France, China and Brazil) or partially publicly- funded (in Germany, Holland and the Scandinavian countries) or, as in the U .S., have become public charter schools, with better salaries but greater government regulation.

 

 

Principles of Self-Administration

 

The idea of Waldorf schools, and indeed of all schools, being free of state control is not difficult to grasp. The primary reason for this perspective is that governments, when they function well, are oriented towards equality and will therefore seek to impose uniform standards on all schools as well as to prescribe curriculum requirements

 

Click here for the whole article

Personal Reflections on Waldorf School Governance and Effective Practices, Lynn Kern

 

 

Personal Reflections on Governance:

The Eleven Keys to Success

Lynn Kern

 

The research into School Governance is one of the most widely anticipated topics in the long history of the Effective Practices research project. Schools have been struggling with the questions of how best to organize themselves and manage their affairs so that the young human beings in their care can receive the best possible Waldorf education. “Just give us the organization structure, the policies and the practices of the successful schools so we can put them into place. We want to get on with the real work of educating children,” has been the unspoken plea of many a leader in our school communities. And yet, having completed a detailed study of the ways in which schools with strong and successful governance cultures approach this issue, I was struck by the wide variety of approaches the well governed schools have put into place. There does not seem to be a single approach, structurally or procedurally, that works well in the best schools. There is no fixed, perfect form or approach to governance in our schools. A number of different forms and a variety of policies and procedures are in place in well governed schools, and these differing forms are each effective and appropriate for the schools which employ them. Biography, size, and the stage of a school’s development all play a role in suggesting the best form for a particular school at a given time, yet even here there is no one-approach-fits-all-schools solution.

 

What then can we take away from the study of Effective Practices in governance? If the answer isn’t in the structure per se, where is it? What do all of these schools have in common that, despite their different structures, policies and personalities, allow each of them to be particularly effective in their approach to school governance? What are the overarching principles that will inform other schools which are earnestly striving to address governance issues in their communities?

 

Despite the wide variety of approaches, structures, methods and practices we documented, each of the well governed schools seem to me to share eleven key features that contribute to their ability to govern their schools at a highly effective level. These eleven keys to governance success are:

  • Conscious Agreement
  • Shared Vision
  • A Republican Approach
  • Cultivation of Leadership
  • Separation of Policy and Operations
  • Operational Leadership Teams
  • A Threefold Perspective
  • Active Participation and Destiny Meetings
  • Ongoing Review
  • Communication and Trust
  • The Collaborative Path

 

Conscious Agreement

Each of the schools with successful governance enjoys a high level of conscious agreement about their governance structure, policies and procedures. In these schools the mechanisms of governance are well understood by the employees of the school and by the broader parent community. Not only is the governance of the school well understood – it also enjoys broad support.

 

Oftentimes these schools developed their approaches to governance as the result of crisis or breakdown of some sort in the school. These crises force schools to address their governance practices, and to do so in a way that achieves the understanding and support of the employees and the parents at the school. The combination of structure, policies and practices were typically built up over time, as faculty and volunteers worked together to find approaches that best addressed the needs of the school. In no instance did a school report adopting an entire governance structure and implementing it whole. Instead they worked and struggled and built something that was uniquely their own. It is clear that there is something in the struggle to build consensus and support that sharpens the thinking and allows broad levels of understanding and support to develop. These schools have embraced the need to address governance issues and worked them through. Good governance is not something they implemented; it is something they have earned.

 

Shared Vision

Not only do these schools have broad-based conscious agreement to their governance structure, policies and practices, but they also have a clear vision of the school and where it is headed. This vision of the immediate needs and long term dreams for the school, and the understanding of the values that underlie the way in which work is done, are well articulated and talked about regularly in the community. Faculty and parents, paid staff and volunteers, all share a common vision of the school and support the values that inform the way in which the school is managed. These schools have, in the words of Rudolf Steiner, worked “to acquire the spirit that will unite the school.” This works “engenders in us our sprit of unity.”

 

A Republican Approach

All of the schools in our study of effective governance employed a republican approach to their operations. A republic is a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of its citizens, and that power is exercised by representatives chosen by the citizens. Schools with successful approaches to governance use decision making processes such as various forms of consensus to ensure that power rests in the general bodies of the school rather than in the hands of a headmaster, director or single administrator. Large bodies such as the Board of Trustees and the College of Teachers make key policy decisions for the school, and these bodies choose representatives to do the operational work on their behalf.

 

This approach, often called republican academies, is the basis on which the committee life of a well governed Waldorf school is based. Large groups consciously delegate authority and responsibility to individuals and to groups to do work on their behalf. These delegations may take the form of a job description when authority is vested in a single individual or in the form of a committee or task group mandate when the delegation is given to a group of individuals. In this way large governing bodies are able to retain authority in the key areas of decision making (policy setting) while delegating operating issues to volunteers and staff. This ensures that the proper amount of time and attention can be paid by individuals entrusted to deal with them without bogging down large governing bodies with the need to deal with operating minutiae.

 

Environments that Cultivate Leadership        

Schools with effective governance do more than tolerate their leaders – they empower their leaders, honor their willingness to serve as leaders, and consciously work to develop more future leaders for the school community.   The presence of a strong shared vision and clear delegations of authority in the form of written mandates and job descriptions allow leaders to step forward in many areas of the school’s operation. The faculty, Board and parents can be comfortable in allowing leaders in various areas to act, knowing that the depth of the shared vision and the clarity of written delegations will inform the well intentioned individuals the school has selected to do work on its behalf. The personal freedom of the various leaders in the school is maximized, meaning that people are free to be as creative as possible in the ways they choose to carry out their responsibilities. Structures that allow many people the opportunity to practice leadership mean that the school will be well served when new leaders are asked to step forward to fill a void – it will have a strong stable of experienced leaders from which to choose should the need arise. And, perhaps most importantly, because individuals and small groups have been entrusted to do work on behalf of the larger group, the time available for the most important work – educational deepening and pedagogical study – is maximized.

 

Separation of Policy Setting from Operations

The successfully governed schools are increasingly moving toward a state where the Board and the College of Teachers are the primary policy setting arms of the school. Operational implementation of the policies created by the Board of Trustees and the College of Teachers is delegated to its key administrative personnel (the pedagogical chair, the business manager and the community development chair) and to their respective committees. The College of Teachers sets educational policy out of their shared study of the growing child, and then directs the key administrative personnel of the school to work cooperatively to see that these policies are implemented. Because the College is able to successfully entrust the operational implementation of its policies to others significant time is freed in the College meetings to allow further study. The days of the College attempting to coordinate the detailed implementation of all of its policies are ending, allowing the College to become the etheric heart that is so necessary to support the development of the young people in the school’s care.

 

Similarly, the Board of Trustees is increasingly avoiding the temptation to dip into financial and development operations. The successful Board keeps its vision firmly on the horizon and its ear cocked to catch the thoughts of the moral owners of the school. Boards are learning to avoid the trap of double delegation that has so plagued them in the past. Double delegation occurs when a Board names a business manager, but then also names a Board treasurer with a remarkably similar job description and unclear separation of duties. It can also occur when a community development director is hired and a Board development committee is also created. Increasingly Boards keep their focus on the creation of policy and the long term strategy for the school, while the operational aspects of those policies are handled outside the trustee circle.

 

Leadership Team

While a number of Waldorf schools have been experimenting recently with the use of an executive director, it is interesting to note that not one school using this approach was recommended for inclusion in our study of schools with strong governance. While it may be that with increased experience schools will find a way to make the single headmaster approach work, Robert Greenleaf suggests that this will not be the case. Known for his work in the area of Servant Leadership, Greenleaf writes about the perils of a single chief in his booklet, “The Institution as Servant”. His concerns about the concept of a single chief include:

  • “To be a lone chief … is abnormal and corrupting. None of us is perfect and all of us need the help and correcting influence of close colleagues. When a person is moved atop a pyramid he or she no longer has colleagues, only subordinates. The frankest and bravest of subordinates does not talk with one’s boss as one talks with colleagues.” Communication is instead warped and filtered.
  • “A self-protective image of omniscience often evolves from these warped and filtered communications. This in time defeats any leader by distorting one’s judgment.”
  • “The idea of one-person-in-control enjoys widespread support because of the decisiveness it affords when decisiveness is needed. Yet a close observation of top persons everywhere reveals the burden of indecisiveness to be much greater that the benefit of decisiveness. The difference is that decisiveness is usually conspicuous and sometimes heroic, whereas indecisiveness is often subtle, hard to detect, and sometimes tragic. When one person is chief the multiple liabilities to the institution resulting from indecisive moments much overweighs the assets of the few cases where the chief is conspicuously decisive.”
  • “Everywhere there is much complaining about too few leaders. We have too few because most institutions are structured so that only a few – only one at a time – can emerge.”
  • “The typical chief … is grossly overburdened. The job destroys too many of them … But for the institution there is also damage. For in too many cases the demands of the office destroy the person’s creativity long before they leave office.”
  • “When there is a single chief there is a major interruption when that person leaves.”
  • “Being in the top position prevents leadership by persuasion because the single chief holds too much power. The chief often cannot say persuasively what one would like to say because it will be taken as an order.”
  • “The prevalence of the lone chief places a burden on the whole society because it gives control priority over leadership.”

 

Perhaps our successfully governed schools have intuited many of Greenleaf’s concerns. For whatever reason, these schools are increasingly moving to the use of a leadership team to manage the day to day operational matters of the school. These leadership teams manage the daily operations of the school in a collective manner, and report on their work in a regular way to those they serve.

 

A Three Fold Perspective

In the past schools employed organizational structures which were built on polarity, and this scheme seemed to bring out oppositional forces in a predictable and negative way. The Board and College were seen as the two primary organs of the school. The College was the pedagogical/cultural arm, and handled both policy setting and operations in that realm. The Board was the realm of “everything else”, and focused on policy and administration in the administrative and development realm. The Board and College in these schools might enjoy good relations for extended periods of time, but when challenges arose they frequently engaged in a game of power tug of war. While these challenges are always overcome in the end, the drain on the etheric forces of all those caught up in the struggle far outweighed the benefits from the eventual solution to the problem.

 

Schools now seem to be moving in an operational direction that is more explicitly threefold in nature, leaving the realm of opposition and polarity for one that enjoys the stability inherent in a three-legged stool. The Board and College have limited their focus to policy setting and long term strategy, leaving the operations to three carefully selected leaders. These leaders are the pedagogical chair, the administrative chair, and the community development chair. Together they form a management circle or leadership team that can ensure that policies established by the Board and College are put into effect in a way that meets the sometimes competing needs of these three realms and recognizes that the spirit of the school can only succeed when all three aspects of its being operate in harmony.

 

Active Participation and Destiny Meetings

The well-formed and active committee structure in the strongly governed schools has several benefits. One of those benefits just mentioned is that it allows many opportunities for people to practice the exercise of leadership in roles both large and small. But another, more subtle effect of the committee life is that it allows many people to develop a personal and direct experience of the school. Development officers all know the same secret – the fastest way to make someone feel like an owner of the school is to allow him an opportunity to be the servant of the school. It is interesting how quickly a parent’s speech can be transformed just by allowing him an ongoing responsibility for some aspect of school life. Often it only takes a few weeks of meetings before the phrase “the school” is replaced with “our school” or “my school”.

 

Not only does active participation create a sense of ownership and responsibility, it also sharpens thinking and moves conversations out of the philosophical (who cares?) realm into the immediate and practical (we do!) realm. This sharpened thinking, especially when coupled with the use of consensus decision making, requires people to bump into each other, find areas of agreement and, on occasion, to knock the rough edges off of each other. Consensus decision making adds another layer to this awakening process. While hierarchy allows one individual to suppress the other, consensus decision making requires true meetings between people and forces them to hear and consider what the others in the group may be considering. While consensus decision making is not always the most expeditious approach, it certainly has the advantage of being the most effective in the long run, for the school and the individuals involved.

 

It is these opportunities for us to truly meet each other that led Rudolf Steiner to demand non-hierarchical republican structures and consensus based decision making for our Waldorf schools. Only in this way can we achieve the shared understanding of the spirit that will unite the school that is essential if we are to self-administer our schools without a single headmaster or intrusive government regulation.

 

Ongoing Review

The schools with strong governance are also well disciplined when it comes to reviewing their work. They have processes in place for ongoing review of events, activities, decisions and mandates. Evaluations take place routinely at year end, but they also take place in an ongoing way throughout the year. In this way the school experiences ongoing opportunities for improvement, and continuously strengthens its performance.

 

Communication and Trust

A reflection of this interest in continuous improvement is the practice of following up immediately whenever unhappiness or uneasiness is sensed. Schools with good governance ask promptly, “What is concerning you? How can it be better? What else is needed?” Their ability to ask the Parsifal question (“Brother, what ails thee?”) ensures that issues are addressed early on, long before they have the ability to poison relationships and derail important activity.

 

The social life and trust that is built up among community members through committee life pays great dividends here. Those who are feeling concern know that they can express their perceptions candidly, and rest assured that the human connections built up over time will help them weather the discomfort of temporary disagreements about what is best for the school and its students. Conversely, those who have been delegated responsibility in one area or another at the school understand that they have a responsibility to share with others information on the decisions they are making and the thinking that informed those decisions. This trust and two-way communication are critical factors in the school’s ability to use republican academies effectively.

 

The Collaborative Path

The schools with successful governance have done more than just create well documented administrative models. They have built into their very structure the collaborative approach that Steiner insisted was essential in building a unified center. Collaboration is emphasized everywhere. It is seen in the sharing of policy setting responsibilities between the Board and the College, and emphasized in the cooperative management structure of the leadership team. The active and extensive committee structure in the school again echoes the collaborative theme.

 

These successful schools have created structures that are workable and sustainable, and that permit meaningful amounts of time to be dedicated to group study and conversation. Out of this group study comes a shared imagination that gives direction and context to each small group, committee and individual at work for the school. It is as if the members of the school community are engaged in a large-scale paint by numbers project, each one very capable of performing his or her #1 or #2 task very well, and each comfortable in the knowledge that the shared imagination developed through their study and conversation will guide each part of the school in a coordinated effort without the control and interference of a hands-on direct superior or manager.

 

Good Governance: Wide Spread Happiness

Schools with good governance are recognizable by the broad level of happiness that exists with the form of its governance and with the individuals serving in various leadership roles. If the leaders of the school are happy but there is wide spread dissatisfaction in the faculty and parent community, the governance of the school is not strong and needs attention. Similarly, if the parents and faculty are happy with the school’s governance but the small group of individuals serving in leadership positions feels overburdened and unappreciated then governance problems still exist. In the end, broad happiness and satisfaction is the hallmark of a school with truly effective approaches to governance in its structure, policies and procedures.

Lynn Kern

2009

Lynn is currently the Administrator of the Highland Hall Waldorf School in Los Angeles. She has been a school consultant, member of the AWSNA board and school administrator for many years.

This essay by Lynn Kern was done as a part of the AWSNA Effective Practices Governance Module, part of the Effective Practices Project. People working in AWSNA affiliated schools may find the module on the AWSNA website WhyWaldorfWorks under the password protected school resources section. Check with your school administrator for the password.

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                  

 

Identity and Governance, An essay by Jon McAlice

It is a rare school that does not struggle with questions of governance at some point in its life. Today, many schools find themselves in the midst of such struggles. To some extent, these struggles revolve around questions of authority, questions that at their worst spiral downward into struggles for power, or they reflect a loyalty to forms that have been handed down as appropriate for Waldorf Schools. In some cases, we recognize in these forms the inability to create and sustain viable structure out of a sense of the whole. At the center of all of them lies the question of the identity of Waldorf Education.

The question of identity has grown more pressing over the course of the last 15 years as the number of Waldorf schools has grown and as a new generation of teachers has moved into positions of responsibility within the schools. It has been accompanied by a concerted effort towards institutional stability and assimilation into the greater educational landscape. This push has embraced forms of school development and quality assurance that are ubiquitous in the mainstream, while making efforts to adapt them to the special situation of Waldorf education with its focus on individual learning. Although it has resulted in stronger institutional forms and a somewhat more professional face for Waldorf education, it has also exacerbated the increasingly existential question, “What is a Waldorf School.”

 

click here to read his article in full.

 

 

This article by Jon McAlice, teacher, consultant and author, outlines a creative view of the basic issues of governance in a Waldorf school. Jon expands on these ideas in his book Engaged Community. Click here to read a review of Jon's book. and 

More Governance Resources

More Governance Resources

We mentioned above the importance of understanding the differences between management and governance. There are a number of good articles about these differences but this one seems to make it simple enough and useful enough to provide insights when we want to understand governance in a deeper way.

 

Another good article on Management and Governance by Dianna Bell outlines simply and clearly the difference between what she terms Watchdog (advisory), trustee and pilot (management) types of boards. In her helpful description she encourages boards to be self reflective and to find ways to assess what model of function is appropriate, given the organizations particular history and current dynamics.

 

There are a number of resources that are focused on the idea of the organization as a living entity and that point to the helpful insights that can be found when considering the organic processes in an organization from comparing them to the life processes in the human being. These are ones in our resource collection that are worth reviewing in the light of understanding governance. One in particular that is the most extensive practical guide to working with these ideas, is the book “School as a Living Entity” by Rea Gill that describes her work to transform the governance of two different schools.

 

Another brilliant and practical work is the book “Transforming People and Organizations: The Seven Steps of Spiritual Development” by Margrete van der Brink.

 

There are three governance models that have grown outside of the Waldorf school movement but that are of importance to our work, not because they might be adopted, but because in each of them, inspired thinkers have attempted to take a deeper look at the ways organizations can organize themselves to create the highest degree of freedom in the working of the individuals and groups along with the highest degree of collaboration.

 

One is the Policy Governance work of John and Miriam Carver. Here is an article that outlines the basic ideas behind Policy Governance. There are a number of schools that have adopted, with varying success, the Policy Governance Model.

 

The second model is called Sociocracy or Dynamic Governance and was developed over the last century through research and application in the Netherlands. Sociocracy provides a new imagination and set of operating principles that focus on helping an organization become self managing throughout its structure.

 

A newer model that grew out of Sociocracy is called Holocracy, and we have included a resource that outlines the basic premises of this governance approach. Holocracy is an innovative model that embraces self regulation in a refreshing way by establishing very clear and rigid practices designed to empower and support the work of individuals throughout an organization.

 

Lastly, we would point again to the book “Reinventing Organizations” by Frederic Laloux that outlines research into the shifting paradigm in organizations toward collaborative models of self governance. The background he outlines about the shifting consciousness behind more collaborative organizations very much aligns with the social insights of Rudolf Steiner from 100 years ago.

 

Exploring Accountability: An Introduction

This newsletter focuses on accountability. It is a topic of conversation and a concern, not only in every Waldorf School, but also in every organization today. Most of the books, articles and essays connect accountability to improving performance and outline processes to help individuals or groups become more accountable by setting clear goals, having clear roles and responsibilities, having systems to evaluate employee performance, giving people incentives, and creating clear consequences when individuals fall short of goals. All of these suggestions can be useful in certain situations, but they fall short of being helpful to those of us working in highly collaborative horizontal organizations.

The dynamics of accountability in horizontal organizations are different. Individuals have many more meaningful relationships and are expected to carry more responsibility for the whole organization and to be responsive to collegial feedback. The typical measure of accountability -- that of improving performance -- needs to be balanced with the concern for developing the capacities of individuals. In our endeavors, it is a central purpose of our work. This difference is fundamental. Ultimately, in healthy horizontal organizations, individuals become more and more capable of guiding their own development and incentives, and consequences are more intrinsic.

The collection of articles in this newsletter explores what accountability means in a collaborative organization: what is required of us as individuals; how do we need to organize and manage our organizations to support and encourage accountability; how do we find ways to assure that our organization is accountable to those it serves.

This is an ongoing exploration that hopefully can lead to individuals gaining new insights into ways to understand accountability and bring health to our organizations.

The following articles explore the realm of personal and organizational accountability.

The One World Trust report on accountability in international NGO’s offers some insightful aspects of what makes an organization accountable to its stakeholders. While its audience is organizations working in the international arena, its principles are helpful in thinking about how we as a school engage and inform those whom we serve – families and the community at large. The article is an excerpt of the full report, “Pathways to Accountability – The GAP Framework.” The full report and the excerpt are both available in our resource collection.

In an excerpt from his important book, Reinventing Organizations, Frederic Laloux describes how organizations pioneering new horizontal forms deal with performance evaluations for groups and for individuals. It is an interesting exploration of how previous practices of control are transformed in new organizations.

 “Managing Horizontal Accountability” is an article by Darrel Ray ad David Elder that shares insights about how performance-focused horizontal teams and groups achieve their goals through four basic working principles. It is a quick read and while it was written for different settings than schools, it provides some useful tips for all of us.