Multi-academy trusts (MATs) oversee groups of schools in England, each led by a CEO responsible for implementing strategy, leading growth and representing the trust (DfE, 2023). This blog post focuses on sharing the perspectives of serving and aspiring CEOs, and explores implications for CEO professional development practice.

The Department for Education (DfE, 2023) outlines six essential domains for effective CEOs of MATs:

• Leadership and Organisational Development
• Quality of Education
• Strategic Governance
• Finance and Operations
• Workforce and Talent Development
• Public Benefit and Civic Duty.

Internal perspectives from serving and aspiring CEOs on what constitutes success remain less well known. We define aspiring CEOs as those in senior executive roles (for instance deputy CEO, CFO) who aspire to become CEOs. As the next generation of CEOs, the perspectives of aspiring CEOs are valuable and deserve to be heard alongside those of current CEOs.

We recruited 31 participants, including 19 serving CEOs and 12 aspiring CEOs, from a professional development programme designed to support them in growing and leading successful, sustainable, thriving large MATs. Participants were asked to name three things that define success for a CEO of a MAT. Using an inductive and deductive coding approach to analyse 63 short written responses, we identified six themes aligned with the DfE’s six domains, with an additional theme of ‘Personal Quality’. Table 1 shows the frequency of each theme mentioned out of 97 codes, reflecting the perceived importance of each domain for success.

Table 1: Frequency of themes

The most common theme was ‘Leadership and Organisational Development’, covering vision, mission and values that are ‘lived’. Strong internal and external relationships were valued: with the board, central team and multiple stakeholders. ‘Quality of Education’ was often seen as integral to success, focusing on outcomes of pupils, quality of teaching, quality assurance and evaluation.

‘Personal Quality’ was another key theme, reflecting certain ways of thinking, communicating and working that contribute to success. The codes include critical reflection, listening, questioning, ambition, ability to write policy, system design, contextual adaptation, calm responses to events, sense making of perspectives, and confidence in judgement. For instance, two CEOs emphasised that ‘critical reflection is at the heart of the role’ and ‘adopting an introspective approach’. Listening and questionning, making sense of different perspectives, and being confident were seen as essential for making an effective decision or judgement. These personal qualities reflect multiple roles that a CEO needs to play, including a school leader, policy entrepreneur, networker and broker (Hughes, 2020).

‘Personal qualities reflect multiple roles that a CEO needs to play, including a school leader, policy entrepreneur, networker and broker.’

The least mentioned theme was ‘Public Benefit and Civic Duty.’ However, we argue that this domain is significantly important for addressing the intersectional challenges faced by children and their families, such as poverty and mental health. As an anchor institution for a local community (Townsend et al., 2022), a MAT should not only ensure education quality for all children but also collaborate with other sector actors, such as the NHS, for a wider common good. CEOs need to cultivate a civic mindset and take on broader civic responsibilities. In addition, CEOs need to recognise their influential power to the system and enact their agency as system architects to act on rather than just in the system. This aligns with the essentials of system leadership, which include seeing the whole landscape and shifting from reaction to co-creation (Senge et al., 2015).

Our findings suggest that success for a CEO is multifaceted, involving interconnected domains at personal, organisational and system levels. Given that personal qualities are deemed important to success, opportunities should be provided to build these qualities, such as through relationships with peers and mentors, and coaching. The CEO’s role as a ‘system architect’, contributing to wider public benefits, should be emphasised more explicitly in and enacted through professional development practices for CEOs.

References

Department for Education [DfE]. (2023). Multi Academy Trust leadership development: Chief Executive Officer content framework. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64ff30a657278000142518db/MAT_leadership_development_-_CEO_content_framework.pdf

Hughes, B. C. (2020). Investigating the CEO of a MAT: Examining practices and positions on ‘the street’. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 48(3), 478–495. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143219833688

Senge, P., Hamilton, H., & Kania, J. (2014). The dawn of system leadership. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 13, 2733. https://doi.org/10.48558/YTE7-XT62

Townsend, J., Vainker, Ed., & Cruddas, L. (2022) Community anchoring: School trusts as anchor Institution. Confederation of School Trusts. https://cstuk.org.uk/knowledge/thought-leadership/community-anchoring-school-trusts-as-anchor-institutions/