Being a school leader comes with challenges. As I reflect on a 20+ year school leadership journey, the level of trust in leadership has decreased. Many reasons are responsible for this, and I won’t delve into the political polarization or social media impact.
Instead, I offer a refreshing glimpse into practical ways learned through research and experience to rebuild and solidify trust. The reasons for pursuing this are many, most importantly, the reality that when children learn in a trusting environment, they shine.
And trust starts at the top.
Building Trust From The Top
Effective school leadership, particularly by principals, is closely linked to student achievement, and trust positively influences student achievement. This relationship may seem obvious but where trust has been tested, we must remind ourselves to work on, rebuild, and sustain it. Trust is part of a set of soft skills that continuously surface as significant, even when we are too busy to put in the time as we face the onslaught of other challenges in our schools.
Trust is built through competence, reliability, honesty, transparency, openness, and awareness of vulnerability. So where do we begin in an untrusting, conspiracy-theory world? The most fundamental methods involve analog approaches. Consider: have you ever been wrapped up in an email war, a vicious cycle of back-and-forth antagonism and insults? I am betting you have, and this is my leadership strategy . . . .
I received an email from a concerned parent about an alleged case of lice. You can imagine the misinformation running rampant online. He was genuinely concerned and asking for information, but I couldn’t reveal specifics due to FERPA protections of minors, and my reply conveyed this. He responded with the fear that I wasn’t being transparent and covering up something. I hadn’t interacted with him before and this reaction, even today, surprises me.
Leaders frequently make the mistake of doubling down at this stage, or worse, ignoring the request altogether. This perpetuates mistrust more than anything. Instead, I called him, something that often surprises parents–a fundamental problem in itself. Too often leaders hide behind keyboards, thinking the buffer will protect us when, in fact, it makes things worse.
I’ve written about the online disinhibition effect: the tendency to dehumanize a person on the other side of digital communication. This is how bad online behavior metastasizes, like cancer. The most effective cure is to get the person offline. On the phone, he got to hear my voice, the sound of sincerity and reason. This works 90% of the time–not a bad batting average!
Understand that I wasn’t just calling him; I was calling the 10 parents he followed up with, and the ones they subsequently connected with, echoing even further. The conversation flipped from distrust to respect. I’m not looking for admiration, unless it helps kids win, and kids win when trust happens.
Consequently, this issue was over in one phone call–not a single additional parent followed up, and the social media echo chamber died. You’ve seen the reverse: people go haywire, a hyperactive hive mind starts with a bad seed and snowballs into chaos. Ignore it, as many do, and you’ll regret it. So stop these disproportionate reactions before any take root — this is the leader’s choice.
Toe Dipping: Risk or Reward?
Having the advantage of being in hundreds of schools for various reasons over my career, I’ve learned that each has its own unique persona. You feel it when entering the building, and that’s what makes each school community so special.
Yet one consistent theme across schools are the whispers you hear at the corner of a hallway, or side entrance of the school. Whispers can be good, helpful, and even offer free advertising. Or they can fester and magnify inaccurate details. That’s because absent facts, it is human nature to fill in the gaps, and the brain has a tendency to do so with negative and often gross inaccuracies.
Our choice as school leaders is to reconstruct these whispers. We can’t stop them, nor should we. Instead, we should enter into them in subtle, strategic ways. We should toe dip and share valuable, real information at a time and place where needed. Toe dipping is simply an injection of authentic facts that migrate into the school mindset.
Remember, if you don’t tell the school’s story, someone else will and you don’t want their version.
On the topic of risk with these conversations, it is important to share what you can, do so with candor and thought, and limit what you can’t with frank audacity. Your informal school leaders will respect this approach.
Greasing the Wheels
Change is hard for anyone, and many teachers are type-A personalities, effective at organization and structure, not so much at facing disruptions, such as cutbacks when realigning staff. It can be a dramatic shift.
Proactively sharing ideas with your faculty about ways to adapt, or “greasing the wheels,” helps the change process. You can gain a sense of willingness, and at the same time, toe dip, letting others know what challenges you face, all while monitoring the vibe.
By doing this, you gain ideas from others that you may not have considered. Greasing the wheels with informal powers in your school also makes you willing to hear and adjust. Even if the change isn’t exactly what they had hoped for, there is little that is as powerful as people feeling heard.
Form Feedback: 90% Agreed
Schools take years to undo distrustful us-against-them mantras. For example, in a prior school leadership assignment, I faced a union-heavy environment. This was a difficult transition for me at first. I am not the school leader who points to a contract; I focus on humane leadership decisions, such as letting someone leave 15 minutes early to get to their sick child, without making them give up needed sick time.
In this school, I was asked to add a holiday performance assembly to an already busy instructional schedule. I let the faculty decide, having them complete a survey, and 90% endorsed having the assembly, so we scheduled it.
Later, a union-minded teacher came to me saying that she never would have guessed that so many wanted this assembly, absent the survey. The monkey was off my back! Too many leaders make decisions such as this one without checking with stakeholders. When you do, you can point to the results of the silent majority in a safe harbor.
Trust in leadership is increasingly fragile. School leaders must prioritize rebuilding and maintaining trust to provide a positive learning environment. By engaging in open communication, embracing vulnerability, and actively involving stakeholders in decision-making, leaders can transform whispers of doubt into a chorus of trustful support.