3 Governance Findings, 1 Failure Mode

We know that the average tenure of international school heads is less than 5 years, and that governance drives that dynamic.

At Middle States and AISH, we witness governance through a broad lens: between us, we have over 3700 members in 150 countries.

We believe that governance has become a critical lever for international schools, so we decided to do something about it. And those efforts start with diagnosing the dimensions of the challenge.

If you saw Kevin Baker’s white paper on leadership transitions, then you know that this is not about bad actors. Heads are trying their best, and boards have good intentions. Instead, as Kevin points out, we’re dealing with governance design failures. 

So we created the Head-Board Leadership Diagnostic, using the standards in AISH’s Leadership Playbook and Middle States’ Governance Mastery implementation framework.

The first set of responses to the diagnostic come from 65 heads and board chairs in 33 countries. What would you guess they point to as the blinking red lights of governance?

Trust? Communication? Board composition?

Nope. They cited evaluation, dashboards, and succession. 

And while those three things may look very different on the surface, we believe that they point to a single root cause—broken feedback infrastructure:

• Feedback on the past: Half of heads say their evaluation isn’t clear, evidence-based, or followed through.

• Feedback on the present: Nearly half say their board dashboards don’t lead to real discussion or action.

• Feedback on the future (aka Feedforward): Nearly half say succession plans aren’t clear.

Feedback depends upon shared understanding. And shared understanding depends upon a governance system that has been designed with intention. If you want to understand the strengths and gaps in your school’s governance design, take 3 minutes to complete the Head-Board Leadership Diagnostic.

It will provide you with:

• Governance health score: An objective read on your board relationship today.

• 2-3 high-leverage moves: Practical steps to take before your next board meeting.

• Peer benchmarks: Your results compared to heads navigating the same relationship.

It’s free. It’s confidential. And it will equip you to have a conversation with your board chair about the design of governance at your school.