Beware the Brussels Sprout

It's that time again. You're booking your staff Christmas dinner. Someone's choosing the venue. Someone else is suggesting Secret Santa. 

And then, just as you’re feeling festive, someone pipes up: “Shall we invite the governors this year?”

And everyone nods. Because it is a lovely idea, isn’t it? A chance to get to know them better, to share a few laughs. 

And that's nice. I mean it. There's nothing wrong with creating some warmth with your board. 

But please, remember this: It's nice. But it's not enough. 

I've worked with some lovely governing boards and school leaders. Boards that genuinely cared about each other. That knew each other's families. That had wonderful social events together. And some of them were still completely ineffective at governance.

Because here's what happens: We book the Christmas dinner and think we're building the relationship. We create social warmth and assume it will translate into professional trust. We invest in getting to know each other and expect it will make challenge easier. 

It doesn't. Not on it's own. You see:

• You can have governors who like you and still won't challenge you when it matters. 

• You can have warm relationships and still have meetings where difficult issues get smoothed over. 

• You can laugh together over a mutual dislike of overcooked brussels sprouts and still have a board that rubber-stamps every decision you bring them. 

The relationship that actually enables governance - the relationship that determines whether your board can help you lead - isn't built just at the Christmas dinner. It's not built purely in the coffee before the Resources Committee, or in the "meet and greet" event. 

It's built in the meetings where you say: "I'm genuinely torn about this decision and I need your help thinking it through." 

It's built when a governor challenges your recommendation and you respond with: "Tell me more. What are you seeing that I might be missing?" 

It's built when you can say: "We got that wrong. Here's what we're learning" and your board doesn't panic. Instead, they recognise the part they played too.

It's built when you face a difficult situation together and come out the other side having made a hard decision well.

Those are the moments that build trust. Real trust. The kind that makes governance work.

So yes - go to the Christmas dinner. Eat, laugh, wear the paper crown. But remember: that’s just the starter.

The main course? That’s served when you bring your board your uncertainty, your curiosity, your honesty.

And you don’t build that kind of relationship over a brussels sprout.