Stephen Peach, assistant headteacher and business manager, Dacorum Education Support Centre, discusses the relationship between and SBMs and their headteachers
Overpromising and under-delivering is an occupational hazard of leaders.
Just ask Boris.
Or any chancellor of the exchequer, come to that.
When the elastic of hyperbole is stretched so far that it can no longer hold up the underpants of reality, the wearer will be left feeling very exposed.
Having worked with some other SBMs, I’ve seen just how exposed they are. They have frequently come from an industry background and struggle with the breadth of the SBM role. Many haven’t even come from within the service sector, and give the impression they are constantly on the back foot, trying to catch a train that always seems to leave the station just before they arrive on the platform.
What compounds the situation is the lack of awareness of headteachers. In my experience, many (particularly primary) headteachers do not have sufficient knowledge of the responsibilities, demands and challenges of the role of business managers. Looking at the situation, it appears that they try and force the person to fit the job description, rather than adjust the job description to match the skills, knowledge and capability of the person appointed to the job; this approach often results in a lot of stressed business managers!
The school hierarchy seems to be that the headteacher gets to pick and choose the jobs they want, while palming off the stuff they either hate or can’t be bothered with to the deputy headteacher and business manager. What complicates relationships further is that as they are being asked to do things by their line manager – they assume that their line manager has thought the task requirements through and, therefore, expects the SBM to achieve what they’re asking of them. So, being the hard workers that SBMs are, rather than tell the headteacher that their wishes are unrealistic, they bend over backwards to get the job done – sometimes damaging themselves in the process.
Firstly, I think it’s important to provide context; headteachers are promoted to their position based upon their classroom experience and not on their leadership and management ability. Most of them have had no more training than an NPQH qualification which, at best, represents a very brief overview of the role of headteacher. Headteachers have not had specific training on the handling of finance or developing finance strategies to enable organisations to grow – or HR, or any kind of in-depth people management skills, or technical knowledge of IT or buildings, or contract management, or… You get the idea.
Most of them have no clue as to the skills, experience and abilities required to be successful in the role of business manager and, as a result, they can make completely unreasonable demands on staff because they have no idea of the logistics of what they are asking for.
Work together
So, SBMs need to step back and look at the big picture of what is going on – it becomes the SBM’s job to educate and train headteachers, finding a way to make up for their lack of knowledge. This requires frequent (at least weekly) communication. Don’t assume people know what you do when you’re in your office with the door shut; if they’re not seeing you, they haven’t a clue, and it’s down to the SBM to tell anyone and everyone. Make sure you explain to the key decision-makers, not just what you do, but the process and reasoning behind your decisions, the logic and knowledge required to make wise and considered decisions, not knee-jerk responses. It is only through this ongoing dialogue, and training, that headteachers will begin to understand the complexities of running the school back office.
Keep in the loop
SBMs are often excluded from critical conversations on the grounds that ‘It’s not about finance’; they are then left to pick up the pieces of a poorly-informed decision late in the process. Headteachers often don’t understand that everything is resource-related, even if it’s not finance-related, and the SBM needs to ensure there is sufficient of everything in the right place, at the right time, for headteachers to be able to deliver their plans.
If you’re feeling out of the loop, just follow up on previous conversations and ask your headteacher when they forget to keep you up-to-date. It’s unlikely that they’ve chosen to exclude you from the information loop – just they have forgotten to update you with developments that often happen in quick succession.
Skills, knowledge, experience and capacity
Just because the headteacher asks you to do something, doesn’t mean you have any or all of the skills required to complete it. Learn to recognise when the ‘requirements plus resources’ equation is never going to equal expectations. Analyse what you’re being asked to do. Do you have the skills and knowledge, or will you need to research these before starting? Do you have the resources (especially time)? Who else might be better placed to do the task?
I think the key here is that it’s not the business manager’s responsibility to fix everything. Often, SBMs are too far down the food chain to affect the level of change required in order to achieve a goal. Sometimes we need to push back at the headteacher and just say, ‘No’. Mind you, I’d swiftly add a sentence that it’s because you do not have the resources to do what is being asked of you.
The headteacher carries the responsibility for the success of the school, not the business manager. When you can’t deliver everything being asked of you, present options to the SLT; you can do this, or this, but not both. Specify the choices available; present these to the SLT and let them decide which areas should be prioritised.
Over-deliver
Nobody minds if things take time to achieve. In my experience, it’s much better to give people a ‘Last date it will be completed by’ rather than a ‘First date it might possibly, maybe, completed’. Undersell and over-deliver; always work on the worst-case scenario and, if you achieve more than you predicted, it’s because you are awesome at project management!
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