Trust is an elusive thing. It takes a long time to capture, yet we can lose it forever with one tiny slip. One instance of thoughtless behavior can drive another away from us forever. As a coach leader, how often do you assess your levels of trust?

A friend tells the story of returning to his deceased father’s home after the memorial service to find that his sister had cleared the entire home while he was dealing with guests, arranging for floral contributions, and lingering for a longer goodbye at his father’s gravesite. Emptying the home was no small feat since his parents were married forty years prior to his mother’s death and had acquired many beautiful and valuable possessions. The incident happened twenty-five years ago. My friend has not spoken to his sister since. Twenty-five years of holidays, births, celebrations, and conversations have passed unshared between the two. My friend explained that he cared little for the possessions. In fact, he said if she had just asked for what she wanted he would have given her anything. She lost his trust by premeditating the heist and by not trusting him to care for her. We may not agree with the severity of his choice, yet we can agree that relationships are destroyed or enhanced by trust.

Applying this example to school leadership helps us understand why having trusting relationships in schools is increasingly desired. Trust is both multi-faceted and multi-layered. It is multi-faceted in that to have trust one must be both trusting and trustworthy. My friend could no longer trust his sister because she didn’t trust him to have her best interests at heart. He also couldn’t trust her because she was dishonest and duplicitous (not worthy of his trust). Similarly, school personnel may mistrust leaders who make changes without their input or who tell them one thing while telling others a different truth. Recognizing the two faces of trust reminds us of a quote by Ernest Hemingway: “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”

Trust is multilayered because it is in the eyes of the beholder. We all look at trust through different lenses. Leaders may lose trust in staff members who are never on time, over commit and under deliver, or who simply are unable to consistently get quality results. Staff may lose trust in a leader who never asks about a sick child or who behaves inconsistently. “She knew I was out for three days, but all she wanted to know was when I planned to reteach concepts missed on the benchmark test.” Or, “On my evaluation, he scored me as below expectations, but when I asked him what I could do to improve he said not to worry about it. He keeps sending mixed messages.”

As leaders who aspire to build trust in our schools, we are often baffled if our attempts at trust-building are futile. We work at being trusting and trustworthy, yet nothing moves. Our efforts may be failing if we are only looking at trust from our perspective. What if we are failing in the trust department because we are unaware of the lenses of others? Astute coach-leaders understand that trust is in the eyes of the beholder and regard trust through multiple lenses.

In their book Trust Works, Blanchard, Olmstead, and Lawrence name four filters for trust: Able, Believable, Connected, and Dependable. The authors tell us we can “bust” or “boost” trust with our actions and behaviors. They also tell us by being aware that trust affects our leadership, we can intentionally impact levels of trust. The goal is to become more trusting and more trustworthy. The book helps readers understand that to have trusting relationships and organizations, a culture of trust must be built. An undisputable fact we do know is that high achieving schools seldom have low levels of trust, but low achieving schools always have low levels of trust.

What are our school leaders learning about the impact of trust on student achievement?

“Learning to trust is one of life’s most difficult tasks.”

-Isaac Watts

“To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.”

-George MacDonald

By Reba Schumacher, PCC