Leadership and trust

Mark Solomons, CEO of School Wellbeing Accelerator - an acclaimed wellbeing expert with over 12 years’ experience developing leadership and culture in schools and creator of Welbee a highly effective online evaluation and staff wellbeing improvement tool, winner of the ERA 2022 Wellbeing Award and GESS Awards 2022 ‘Judges’ Commendation’  discusses the importance of leaders building trust into school culture.

 Effective teams are more creative and innovative, and generate solutions that deliver better results. Improved staff engagement and greater job satisfaction, means higher staff wellbeing, improved retention and a lower rate of staff absence.

Conversely, a lack of trust in leadership has a detrimental impact across the whole school. Staff may feel insecure about a leader’s ability to achieve goals or feel unsure about their role and responsibilities. There may be misconceptions or a lack of transparency about how decisions are made, and poor communication can lead to perceived unfairness or unpredictability. All these factors can lead to dissatisfaction, gossiping and cliques. Distrust can create suspicion about a leader’s agenda, motive, capacity or capability. Employees in low-trust environments are more inclined to just do the minimum required to fulfil their role.

The Oxford Dictionary’s definition of trust is - ‘Having a firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone’.

According to Stephen M R Covey, author of ‘The Speed of Trust’ (2006), trust comes from both character and competence. Character is built based on integrity, motive and intention; and competence is recognised through an individual’s capabilities, skills, results and track record. Both are vital to establish, grow, extend and in some cases restore trust between all stakeholders in an organisation, and is therefore a ‘critical competency of leadership today.’