ABSTRACT
In chapter 6, Clare Huffington considers any headteacher’s most important relationship with the school’s chair of the governing body or board of trustees. The working relationship between these two key leaders is crucial to a school’s well-being and progress. It is surprising therefore that so little appears to have been written about it in the education leadership literature. Huffington’s chapter begins with some thinking about changing ideas on organizational leadership, which open up new possibilities for shared and collaborative models of leadership. For instance, it is not uncommon these days for heads to work with an “executive” or “associate” headteacher, roles that can be ambiguous in relation to boundaries, authority, role, and task. Similarly, although the chair of governor’s role is strategic and the head’s managerial or operational, this sharing of responsibility is never as simple as that. Based on experience of coaching a leadership pair of head and chair of governors of a large comprehensive school over three years, Huffington’s chapter aims to contribute some thinking about this working relationship. Beginning as a pilot, it continued as a regular arrangement and served as a creative think tank, container of anxiety and occasional crisis management, as well as a place for reflection and mutual feedback.
