It began with a thoughtful request: could we revisit the strategic pillar model, as it might be easier for people to follow?

The suggestion came from a place of clarity and care, a genuine wish to make the strategy more accessible. It reminded me how naturally we all gravitate toward models that feel familiar and stable. Pillars are tidy. They make strategy look simple.

Yet that same simplicity can quietly drain away its intent.

The Comfort of Strategic Pillars

Schools love pillars because they’re easy to explain.

They fit beautifully on a poster or prospectus: Mission. Teaching. Students. Staff. It’s the sense that something solid has been built. But beneath that symmetry lies a trap. Pillars flatten everything into equal importance, and worse, they divide what should be unified.

Pillars create ownership zones. They make the team defensive: “We own this area.” They use language like 'my pillar' and 'your pillar,' rather than 'our goal.'

A pillar for Facilities sits beside a pillar for Teaching and Learning, as though the two are equals, when in reality one serves the other. Facilities aren’t a strategic end; they’re a strategic enabler.

It’s also worth recognising why schools find the pillar model comforting from a governance perspective.

Boards and leadership teams are wired to seek predictability and visible symmetry, qualities that signal stability and oversight. Pillars, with their clean verticals and equal weight, project a sense of assurance. They help boards feel that everything is covered, that nothing significant has been forgotten. It’s understandable, and it’s also why they endure.

Why Schools Default to the Pillar Model

Let’s be fair, it’s not hard to see why schools keep coming back to it.

Before that, there’s another subtle reason: from a governance perspective, pillars look predictable. Boards and leadership teams like their clean lines and balance; they convey control and completeness, two words that sit well in governance language but feel awkward in strategy.

First, it’s explainable. Board members, parents, and even marketing teams can wrap their heads around four sturdy columns holding up a mission. It photographs well in an annual report.

Second, pillars make strategy look accountable while remaining unmeasurable. Each one is filled with noble, impossible-to-fault motherhood statements: empower learners, foster belonging, nurture faith. In plain terms, a “motherhood statement” is a phrase that everyone agrees with, but no one can measure, like saying you believe in honesty, equality, or happiness. They’re comforting, safe, and completely uncontroversial.

The term isn’t pejorative; it reflects the kind of wholesome, universally agreeable sentiment a parent might offer. The problem is not with the sentiment itself but with its lack of edge. Beautiful ideas, but so broad you can’t tell if anything’s actually changed. The vagueness protects everyone from scrutiny.

Third, and perhaps most dangerously, pillars reduce choice. They suggest that everything matters equally. A strategy without trade-offs isn’t a strategy, it’s a catalogue. When a school says it has five priorities, what it really means is it hasn’t decided.

The Cost of Comfort

The pillar model feels safe, but it kills focus. It fragments teams, duplicates effort, and hides the fundamental strategic question: what’s supposed to move?

When every group builds its own column, you end up with impressive structures but no connecting roof. The result is predictable: Facilities run a capital plan that doesn’t align with learning goals, ICT purchases platforms no one uses, and wellbeing initiatives fight for time in a crowded timetable.

The Cascading Alternative

In practical terms, cascading the links strategy into the real rhythms of school life — dashboards, meeting cadences, and team scorecards —translates abstract goals into visible progress. This bridge between strategy and daily action is what turns alignment into accountability.

A real strategy doesn’t stand still; it flows. That’s what the Cascading Goals Alignment Model captures. Each level informs and serves the next: the Board defines direction, the Executive translates it into systems, Teaching and Learning turns it into practice, and the business functions enable it all to happen.

Instead of walls, you get pathways. Instead of independence, you get interdependence. Teams stop saying, “we own this pillar”, and start asking, “how do we serve this goal?”

The cascading model makes accountability visible and measurable. Each level carries a clear LAG indicator (the result we seek) and corresponding LEAD indicators (the behaviours we can track). That’s where the real discipline sits; it turns aspiration into evidence.

Progress isn’t reported through sentiment but through movement, data that flows both upward and downward, refining the work at every tier. In practice, this can be visualised through dashboards, team scorecards, or regular rhythm-of-work reviews that surface lead indicators in real time. It’s not a theoretical model; it’s a working system that embeds feedback loops and keeps leadership conversations anchored in data.

It clarifies contribution. It restores hierarchy, not as dominance, but as purpose. The work of Finance, ICT, or Facilities is legitimate to the extent that it advances the school’s teaching and learning mission. When goals cascade, everyone knows what they’re there to lift, and how that lift will be seen.

Moving Beyond the Temple

As you reflect on this, consider a simple challenge: gather your leadership team and review your strategic plan for signs of silos or overlaps. Ask where collaboration stops and ownership begins, and what that reveals about your culture.

Schools don’t need more pillars; they need scaffolding. Structures that can flex, support, and evolve as goals shift. Strategy is a living system, not a monument to past intentions.

So next time someone asks for pillars, pause and ask why. Are we designing for understanding, or for execution? Because if the goal is genuine alignment, then the safest-looking structure may be the most brittle one of all.

Perhaps the best next step for any school is a quiet audit: lay your current plan beside this thinking and ask, where are we still structured like pillars, and where are we already cascading? The answer will tell you more about your culture than any strategic plan ever could.