On the vulnerability of public sector board members

And specifically: how can we support them by writing well?

Let's start by confirming that this isn't a zero-sum game.

If we feel compassion for board members, that doesn't mean we care any less for the rest of the workforce, including those working for very low pay and/or in challenging settings. It doesn't mean we're prioritising leaders' feelings and needs above other colleagues, or the citizens we serve.

It also doesn't mean that these leaders are "snowflakes". It literally just means that we're feeling empathy and kindness for people who sometimes need it. There are surely some poor and neglectful board members out there, but this article is about the many who are sincerely doing their best in difficult times.

As public servants, perhaps we've never felt so vulnerable, as we’re expected to constantly "do more with less". We feel the strain ourselves; and we’re sensitive to how our colleagues can also feel tired, overstretched and exposed. Public servants are generally caring people, always mindful of the needs of our communities, our teams and our peers.

But sometimes there can be an odd disconnect when it comes to caring about the board. We know their job must be stressful, but there can be a sense that they've done it to themselves by choosing that role. There can also be a sense that they’re ultra-resilient; such exceptional human beings that they can handle anything.

Or else we don't even really think about them.

Of course there are many benefits to being in such a senior position. Respect, status, power, remuneration* are all powerful motivators which many people dream of. But equally, this apparently blessed group of people can be really vulnerable sometimes. Let's count the ways . . .

1. Work overload

We're often conscious of how much the leadership expect of staff, but the reverse can also be true. The amount staff can expect of their leadership can be staggering. All of the following scenarios are sometimes considered reasonable:

• being expected to attend back-to-back meetings all through the working day
• being expected to process long and/or complex emails or documents at high speed for meaningful sign-off or other response
• being expected to remember the contents of a previous committee paper on the same topic presented a year ago
• being expected to instantly deduce the key implications or other main points buried in a long and complex paper or email
• being expected to "read across" and make connections between multiple papers / emails etc, and from these to overall strategy.
• being expected to understand and process complex meeting papers while having little or no technical/professional knowledge of the context.

All of this may be manageable as isolated instances. But if these expectations are incessant and coming from multiple people, it can become overwhelming.

2. Complexity overload

The public sector landscape is beyond complex now, and getting more so all the time. The FCDO (UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office) puts it brilliantly, in making the case for systems thinking [1]:

The context of FCDO’s work is a world of increasing contestation, interconnection and complexity. Unpredictable disruptions are becoming more commonplace [...] we risk constant cycles of reacting to immediate crises in fragmented ways, while failing to understand and deal with the root causes of the issues at hand.

The public sector environment often feels incomprehensible and overwhelming now, yet we still expect people to agree and oversee strategic plans and budgets to manage it.

Herbert Simon wrote about the discrepancy between the ideal executive and real, fallible human beings in the 1950s. His term, "Bounded Rationality" denotes the way we are all cognitively limited, no matter how senior and/or intelligent [2].

Simon argued that we should stop assuming that leaders will always give a perfect response, and instead be more realistic about where they're coming from. How much information do they actually have in the given moment? How clear can their thinking really be on this topic?

How far will they view the complex "real world" in a simplified way, due to the human limits on their knowledge and understanding?

3. Being vulnerable to internal attack / criticism

It can be lonely at the top. Overseeing something like an organisational restructure or round of budget cuts can be miserable, especially where such programmes appear to take on a life of their own, and the decision-maker doesn't always feel able to influence in the way they would like.

This doesn't take away one bit of the potentially awful impact on staff which can be debilitating and even life-altering. In such situations, negative reactions can be expected, where people don't take kindly to yet more demands for more work with fewer resources, from a board that may appear exempt from the same demands.

NHS Providers explains that [3]

With an exhausted workforce, it has become difficult, and perhaps counterproductive, to put those delivering services under additional pressure to increase productivity. Attempts to continue to drive improvement can come across as insensitive and require extremely careful messaging when staff discretionary effort has been high for such an extended period.

But we can also look at this from other other side. If board members are presiding over cuts to staff or services, it's generally because they "have to" - they may well be acting under a national directive and/or impossible cost and demand pressures etc. Brandon Jones writes in the context of executive directors [4]:

[They] are often responsible for making critical decisions impacting the organization’s future, employees, and stakeholders. These decisions can be weighty, and the responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the executive director. The loneliness stems from the fact that, in many cases, few people can fully understand the complexity and gravity of these decisions.

4. Being vulnerable to external attack / criticism

External public scrutiny is an essential element of public sector accountability; but it can also be an enormous burden and threat. Even the amount expected of school governors (who are often volunteers working within relatively small organisations), and the consequences of their getting it wrong, can be harsh [5].

The visibility of such criticism can escalate with the size of the organisation or the impact of failings (particularly where quality, safety or financial problems spiral out of control). Poor executive decision making and/or board scrutiny are common themes in major inquiries.

Most organisations will hopefully never be singled out for such an inquiry. However, it's possible that many exec and non-exec leaders are conscious of issues with their own effectiveness - whether due to their own cognitive limitations, or weaknesses in the information they receive - and may have an uneasy feeling of "there but for the grace of God".

5. Moral distress and moral injury

Moral distress is defined as "the psychological unease generated where professionals identify an ethically correct action to take but are constrained in their ability to take that action". Moral injury is defined as arising "where sustained moral distress leads to impaired function or longer-term psychological harm" [6]

People are becoming more aware of these terms, and particularly the risk of moral distress and moral injury for frontline staff [7]. Boards absolutely need to understand these issues, and the implications for their workforce and quality of services [8].

However, it's also possible for board and committee members to suffer a form of moral distress and injury themselves, where services fail to meet needs or expectations and/or the workforce are suffering and members feel powerless to remedy this; or have tried to make things better but failed.

6. Leaders' "vulnerability" isn't always welcomed

The concept of "vulnerability" is often promoted nowadays, as if it's the ultimate superpower with no downsides. The Harvard Business Review advises leaders: [9]

Personal confessions are powerful tools [...] When you’re struggling with a task, be honest [...] When you’re feeling drained due to circumstances at home, let people know you’re not 100% because of things in your personal life [...] Not only will this make people feel safer coming to you with bigger problems down the line, but it will also establish mutual trust — the foundation of inclusive and innovative teams.

This type of advice can be great, and has surely enhanced many people's leadership performance. But does it always apply? And specifically: does it always apply to the top leadership? A moment of skilfully curated and delivered vulnerability can be very powerful indeed. However, not everyone wants to hear their board members share the true depth of the stress and anxiety keeping them up at night.

This can be especially true when we're primed to feel more harshness than empathy for board members, on the basis of their (often real) privilege compared with many staff.

Vulnerability from those "in charge" can also backfire spectacularly if misjudged, where staff already feel psychologically unsafe. As D. Patrick Miller puts it: [10]

Someone who’s vulnerable enough to share with you his or her real feelings may make you feel vulnerable. You may want to run and hide [or] recoil in disgust [...] If someone volunteers vulnerability without being asked, it’s even worse.

What can we do to help, as report authors?

Feeling empathy for board members isn't for everyone at all times, but it's a thought experiment worth exploring in search of becoming fully rounded compassionate leaders ourselves.

We can't magically make the huge red numbers add up for them; or eradicate pernicious strategic issues such as poverty or other inequalities overnight; or give leaders an extra day per week to get things done outside meetings. However, we can have an enormous impact - often more than we imagine - by putting care into our written communications, including emails and board / committee reports. We can show this care in three ways: consideration of senior colleagues' time; consideration of accessibility; and conscious use of Plain Language.

a. Being respectful of senior colleagues' time

Firstly it's about time. Writing work documents well and clearly can be hard work and time-consuming. Pascal: "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter".

However, reading a clear, concise and well-written document is much faster than reading a poorly-structured and muddled one.

If the cost of writing well is the writer's time, but the cost of writing poorly is the reader's time, we should consider the fact that the writer is often one person (or a small number of people), while the readers of an organisational document could number tens or even hundreds, for an important paper, policy or strategy etc.

We should also consider the sheer number of papers (as well as emails etc) that board members may be expected to read for one meeting, or in a single day / week.

b. Ensuring accessibility for everyone

Accessibility of written documents is often associated with people with certain disabilities, and this is an important group to show care for in our writing. However, the need for accessibility cuts across all demographics, and also includes people who may just be struggling with workload, energy and/or attention in a complex working environment. A tired committee member may well not be able to process all the details of a long, poorly written report.

When I used to work in Further Education (FE) governance, there was always a principle that papers should be written for the student governors (often teenagers) to understand. The corollary of this principle was that in this way, your paper could hopefully be understand more generally by the whole governing body or committee.

c. Using Plain Language to make our papers and emails "usable"

Plain Language is so much more than just removing jargon and long words. Many people think that writing in plain language is a kind of "translation" process, where you take a near-final document and "fix" errors such as unexplained acronyms, passive verbs, overlong sentences etc. In this way, you can make the document accessible, and fit for publication.

In fact however, the field of Plain Language (PL) has moved on considerably in recent years.

The ISO (International Organization for Standardization) published an ISO Standard for Plain Language in 2023 [11].

Under the new standard, a document is said to be in plain language if it is USABLE for the reader, based on four principles:

— Principle 1: Readers get what they need (relevant)

— Principle 2: Readers can easily find what they need (findable)

— Principle 3: Readers can easily understand what they find (understandable)

— Principle 4: Readers can easily use the information (usable)

So we still need to avoid unexplained acronyms or jargon; long words; long and complex sentences and so on. But this is just one element of the deeper, holistic art of writing well at work, with our audience's needs in mind . . .

Conclusion

As stated up front, this article doesn't seek to downplay the pressures on the wider workforce, which can be devastating, especially when they accumulate over time. However, it does highlight the fact that some board members may not be feeling as "safe" or privileged as others might expect.

We're all part of a complex machine, and we need all the parts to be in good working order. It's in our interest to work with any frailties and blind spots of our leadership (such as cognitive overload) and help to mitigate the risk of poor decision-making wherever we can . . .

*In fact the remuneration for many public sector board members is often less than people might think [12]. The unfortunate corollary of this is that not everyone can afford to take on one of these important roles, which are therefore "currently filled predominately by those with portfolio careers and in a relatively secure personal, financial position" [13].

* Disclaimer: Pushing the Pen is completely separate to my day job, and does not necessarily represent my employer or its views.

You are welcome to use share or adapt this material for free under Creative Commons: CC-BY-SA 4.0, as long as you credit Pushing the Pen as appropriate: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

References

Image credit: A Stressed Businessperson Sitting at a Desk | Thirdman via Pexels

[1] Systems Thinking and Practice: A Guide to Concepts, Principles and Tools for FCDO and Partners | UK Government Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)

[2] Models of Man | Herbert Simon (1957) | New York: John Wiley.

[3] The case for an increase to NHS non-executive director remuneration | NHS Providers

[4] The Loneliness of Leadership: How Being an Executive Director Is a Lonely Game | Brandon Jones

[5] ‘Inadequate’ school damned as governors ‘failed’ | Tameside Correspondent

[6] Moral distress and moral injury Recognising and tackling it for UK doctors | British Medical Association

[7] Two in three UK doctors suffer ‘moral distress’ due to overstretched NHS, study finds | The Guardian

[8] Addressing the risk of moral injury | Good Governance Improvement

[9] The Best Leaders Aren’t Afraid to Be Vulnerable | Janice Omadeke via the Harvard Business Review

[10] Why Vulnerability is Not Always a Good Thing | D. Patrick Miller via Elephant Journal

[11] ISO 24495-1:2023 - Plain language - Free downloadable extract | International Organization for Standardization (ISO)

[12] Terms and conditions of NHS trust Chairs and Non-executive Directors | NHS England

[13] The case for an increase to NHS non-executive director remuneration | NHS Providers