Before you focus on collective efficacy or school climate, start with trust.
Trust in school is not a simple concept. There are many facets to this construct: benevolent, open, honest, reliable, competent. And for trust to be fostered within an educational community, it needs an intentional effort by the leaders and teachers in the school.
My conversation with Megan Tschannen-Moran, author of Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools (Jossey-Bass, 2014) reveals why trust is so important. She defines it in the context of schools, shares strategies for cultivating trust, and offers suggestions for all educators currently teaching and learning from a distance.
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Transcript
Matt Renwick (00:01):
In this episode of Read by Example podcast, where teachers are leaders and leaders know literacy, I spoke with Dr. Megan Tschannen-Moran, professor of educational leadership at the William & Mary School of Education. A former principal, Megan is also the author of Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools. During our conversation, we discuss what sparked her interest in researching this topic, specific strategies to foster relationships and reliability, and why trust matters more than ever.
Matt Renwick (00:43):
Welcome, Megan. Glad to have you on here. I wanted to talk to you about trust. You seem to be one of the foremost experts on it. As I was sharing with you before we started recording, it is something that you can't really see, but you know it when there's a problem. How you define it in the book is a willingness to be vulnerable to another based on the confidence that the other is benevolent, honest, open, reliable, and competent. So trust is complex. When you first started researching this concept, were you surprised at how complex it was?
Megan Tschannen-Moran (01:23):
Yes. It was really a process of discovery for me. I started out studying trust for my dissertation. And so the first thing I needed to do was find the definition of trust and a measure.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (01:37):
And it turned out there was really not anybody or any research. There were two or three articles that my chair Wayne Hoy had done with a couple of his students in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but that had kind of fallen away. And so I wanted to pick up that line of research and carry it forward. But looking around for a definition, I found that many scholars just assumed that everybody would know what trust was and didn't bother to define it. And when they did define it, everybody defined it in a different way. You know? So, because there was so little research in educational leadership, or even in education more broadly, I ended up looking across psychology and business literature and philosophy, across many different fields. And that's where I found many different definitions.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (02:35):
And so I started collecting those definitions and then eventually did kind of a qualitative analysis, kind of a sort of the different facets that were raised across the different literature. So this definition really isn't original. To me, it's really a composite of other people's thinking to other people's ideas, but taking those facets that seem to be most salient across definitions and then testing them with some quantitative analysis, and it turned out all five of those facets do co-vary. When one falls down, you know, trust falls down and they all tend to be low. And if one's high, they all tend to be high. So they do seem to operate as a set of criteria, at least within the context of educational leadership. I can't make that claim.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (03:31):
We don't want to make that claim more broadly. There may be fields, like how you trust a surgeon or how you trust your accountant, all those five facets might not be relevant. But within school leadership, the work that we do, those five facets have empirical evidence, both quantitative and qualitative, having affirmed that those are important for both school leaders and for teachers, for educators.
Matt Renwick (03:56):
I wonder too, if your definition with the five facets helps it align with the incredible complexity of being a school leader,. You might need it to be that wide and that nuanced. That's what I appreciate about your book. You took those five facets throughout the entire text, but then supported it throughout the way with a lot of quantitative types of studies that, as you said, supported what you were finding.
Matt Renwick (04:26):
You were an elementary principal, correct? In Chicago?
Megan Tschannen-Moran (04:30):
In Chicago, yes.
Matt Renwick (04:32):
And how long were you a principal there?
Megan Tschannen-Moran (04:34):
18 years.
Matt Renwick (04:36):
Okay. So you've got that lived experience of leading school. How did your experience as a principal pique your interest in trust, as an eventual focus for your studies?
Megan Tschannen-Moran (04:47):
I set up a nice school in Chicago that I founded, and it was a small school, just 64 students in four multi-age classrooms, kindergarten through eighth grade in this low income neighborhood that had one of the lowest performing schools in the city of Chicago. And so we were working with kids who were living in difficult circumstances, and we wanted to have the opportunity to try out progressive teaching methods and see if our results might be different. And really we found that they work and we had this lovely, lovely school. And we lived off of hand-me-downs from the North shore of Chicago and all throughout Chicagoland. There would be material being thrown out, you know, perfectly good library books and science equipment and things. People would think what a shame to have that go to waste. And so they packed up their cars and drove down to donate them to us.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (05:48):
And, and so that's how we've had school, but inevitably when they would come in to drop off their donations, they'd spend a few minutes. And within only a few minutes, you know, five minutes or something, they would say, "This is an amazing place". And, and I was curious about that. I know that; I live here, but you have only been here five minutes. What are you seeing? What are you feeling? These are educators from some of the wealthiest districts in the nation coming in saying, "This is amazing that the feel of the place was something really special." And so that evoked some wondering for me, it was like, "What is that they're noticing that they're seeing and how do you get your hands on it? How do you have language around it?" Any of the teachers in my school were going to graduate school and they come talking about these concepts that were so fascinating to me. Well, one principal from the North shore that I knew was doing his dissertation on something that seemed like such a novel idea at the time was called student engagement.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (06:50):
And he's like, "You've got it. Your students are just so highly engaged." I was like, "Well, of course they are, you know, we're doing fun things where were teaching in ways with hands-on and manipulatives and making it engaging and relevant." But it's like, you know, things get wild if they're not engaged, we need to make them engaged. But anyway, so I set off to graduate school with this question in mind. What is that, that thing that people are noticing, what's it called? What's their language about that? And so fortunately for me, when I arrived at The Ohio State University, and there was a new faculty member, Wayne, who was the leading expert in this thing called school climate. And my first class was with him and he started talking about his new book on school climate. Like, that's it, that's it, that's what you call it.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (07:41):
That's what people were noticing. That was the feel of it. And before long I asked Wayne if he needed any help with his research, that I was so curious about it, and I wanted to be a part of that. And so he hired me. And my first day on the job, he had given me an assignment to look into something. Again, I'd never heard of something called teacher self-efficacy. I don't want to look stupid on my first day of work, but I don't know what the heck that is. And so together, we did a review of the research and that ended up really bringing together all bodies of knowledge that took off. Well, having done all that everybody knew I was going to do my dissertation on teachers' self-efficacy, right, because I'd already done the lit review, but it was like, "No, going back to my little school in Chicago, it's like there was something else there that made it such a special place that you could feel that was palpable when you came in in the doors."
Megan Tschannen-Moran (08:44):
This was a very rough neighborhood. So you feel the contrast when you came in and that was trust. So it's the, no I'm going to set aside this whole lit review I've done on teacher self-efficacy, although that was some of what was the magic that was happening at my school as well. But I was curious about trust. It seems like nobody's talking about that. And I think if we're going to take to scale the kind of results that we were having in my little incubator school, that we were going to need to know a lot more about trust. And so that sent me on a path for the last 25 years of studying this construct.
Matt Renwick (09:23):
You hear that too. I've had in my own school - not this school but my past school - we would see similar things. They would have a feeling, someone described it as a well-oiled machine. I didn't know how to take that. I think I might've been some various issues of trust because it can go both ways too. If there's not enough autonomy with the teachers, it can be kind of a cold place too. And you described that in your book, which was very helpful to kind of give a narrative feel to the text with Fred, Gloria, and Brenda. Fred is the very laissez-faire deferential type of leader. Gloria is more of the command and control. Someone described this type of leader as a bull in a china shop - just not a lot of empathy toward how others are feeling perceiving reality. And then there's Brenda, who's not perfect. You nicely described her as human, like the rest of us, but has that kind of balance of both support and challenge leading the school. So that kind of gets into the brass tacks here. What are some strategies of being a Brenda, at the top of your mind that people can employ today, tomorrow, for achieving them and maintaining this balance of support and challenge, which builds trust.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (10:45):
Yeah, and all three of those principals were real people. And I interviewed teachers from their schools and described it. And it was only later when I was analyzing the data, I was like, "Oh, wait a minute. These really fit with the scheme of leadership of, on this continuum of relationship, high or low in relationship and high-low in task. And so we saw the disastrous outcomes, a very well-meaning Fred and Gloria were both very well-meaning, but Fred was too willing to give up on the task dimension of his work, in the interest of having positive relationships with other, but which ironically then led to not positive relationships. Although people liked him, they were really annoyed that he wasn't doing his job. He wasn't stepping up to the plate and doing what they needed him to do to hold people accountable. And then there was Gloria, who, you know, let go of the relationship dimension.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (11:42):
So I think holding in mind, we have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We have to hold in mind the critical importance of the task that we are charged with, and the trust that we are given, when we are handed the keys to a school and given a leadership role in that school. But also don't lose sight of the humanity of the people who are doing that work to recognize as a school leader. You're not the one delivering the core mission of the school; it's the teachers are at the top. So when I talk about professionalism versus bureaucracy, we think of a pyramid, an org chart in a bureaucratic organization where the leaders are at the top, and there's certain assumptions people make as they move up through the leadership ranks, but in a professional organization, I like to flip that and say, it's those who are delivering the core mission of the organization, who are the ones who, whose work is the most essential to our collective outcomes. And so in schools, those are the teachers.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (12:45):
One principal I talked to, there's only two kinds of people in the school. There are the teachers and those who support the work of teachers. And I like that notion of school leadership, because I think it lends us to a professional orientation where we, our work is we're not stepping up into leadership. It was coercive authority to make people do things and issue orders. We are there to support the work of professionals and do everything that we can to make sure that their work is buffered from interruptions, from other things that would distract from the quality of their work, because that's everything. What's happening in those classrooms is everything for us. And we have to honor that and recognize that that is happening through the people who are delivering that instruction, the teachers and the other staff, in people in different kinds of roles, but we need to have positive relationships with those people.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (13:44):
So we need to earn their trust if we're going to ask them to take the risk that trying out new instructional strategies or implementing a new curriculum involves. We need to recognize that we're asking them to take risks and create an environment of safety and of caring so that they can feel confident in trying something new that may or may not work out. Like, let's do our best thinking about this. But first couple of times, we can expect an implementation dip. It's going to get harder before it gets easier. So people, teachers need to know that their principal is there to back them up.
Matt Renwick (14:27):
We are experiencing significant implementation dip right now, as you can imagine. With just the situation with remote or hybrid. And we have been in virtual in my own school for now two weeks. And it just seems like trust matters more than ever because we're at a distance and people need our support, but it's hard to get that support when we're all in different spaces. I'm sure you would agree that trust matters more than ever. Any specific recommendations for online spaces, for their relationships.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (15:01):
Yeah, I think it's become much more difficult because we've lost those informal interactions, the exchanges that just happen as we pass in the hall, or we first greet each other in the morning. So the ways that we can convey benevolence in asking about somebody's family member, who's ill or things that we're aware of, or just even some shared jokes that we can kind of banter, a little bit of banter with each other as we engage for the day that conveys, "I like you, I care about you. You matter to me as a human being," before we start the day before we start our task, let you know, I want to convey that, um, that you're somebody who matters to me. And so when we get in online spaces, we're very task-focused. I mean, we tend to be, you know, we get on there at a certain time, we get our work done this way.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (15:55):
We're all aware of Zoom fatigue. So we try to get in and out as quickly as we can. And so that has lended us, we're leaning over to Gloria's point of view here, you know, that sort of all tasks and little relationship. So we've got to be intentional about the ways that we cultivate that sense of care for people, trying to balance that out with then saying, well, I want you to show up for more time on zoom so I can let you know, I care about which may or may not be. I mean, maybe they really would like some help and support. And so being available as an instructional leader, if you're having trouble with this or that, let's, let's talk about it. I want to be your thinking partner, but there may be other ways that we have to invent to convey a sense of benevolence in and genuine caring for the whole person for what's going on, because this is such a stressful time for people just in lives in general. And that certainly affects our teachers.
Matt Renwick (16:59):
We still have our monthly staff meetings. We do them on Zoom. Just thinking about being intentional with showing that we care, we've started our meetings with just, you know, what has your attention right now, and trying to embed some humor. And at the end of the session, it's optional, but we have a mindful moment, where people can stick around and just take some time, some reflective meditative activities, to kind of take care of the social, emotional side of all we're already thinking about next year. I'm looking forward to being back in physical classrooms. But one of my fears though, is that I see some inequities have really surfaced from this, you know, in terms of access and home environment, just some spaces are just not designed well for learning.
Matt Renwick (17:49):
And we're seeing that, to the point where we're trying to even bring in a few kids who we just know aren't going to be successful online and we're taking that risk. But once we get back, we want to make sure we're trying to address some of these issues that have come up. And I as read your book, trust mitigates some of the effects of trauma, poverty, other life factors, to the point where it's not as significant a factor if high levels of trust are precedent in terms of student achievement. So that's very good.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (18:24):
It's a significant factor, but we can get through that. It won't take as big a hit on learning.
Matt Renwick (18:30):
Yes. And so then, so trust becomes even more important for those, like the school that you were in, it enhances that, and hopefully helps it make it better. How might schools change going back? You know, seeing some of these inequities, especially around access to various resources, to better partner with families and communities or some things you did as a principal, or what did you see other principals do in your research to, to develop that?
Megan Tschannen-Moran (18:59):
Yeah, I think what we're doing now is going to impact how things are then, because families are gonna know. I think we're just going to have to work a lot harder to demonstrate our care now when families are in such distress, but if we make food available, if we take go the extra mile to make learning materials available, to be doing things, to demonstrate our care and for the whole child and really for the whole family, not just "Here's, let me help you make sure you get your math homework done this week," but let me care for the whole child. That's going to live on. So the legacy of what we're doing or not doing now, I think it's going to impact how things are when they come back. It's going to be hard to say, "Oh, we haven't seen you for a long time because you didn't have internet access and, oh well, now you're back, let's accelerate you.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (20:05):
And, by the way, I really care about you. You know, I think that's, that's going to ring hollow. So I think it's challenging. It's challenging because ultimately someday we may choose to structure schools differently. We've really inherited this, factory model of schools where we batch students by age and moving them through. And it may be that some creative, new solutions grow out of this, this time of hardship, where we are finding that we have to rely on technology. Well, it may be that we discover some ways of organizing, learning differently, making use of the affordances of technology, but then enriching it was what we're all missing in our being together in physical presence. And to really cherishing those times, when what are the affordances of face-to-face that we've really been missing? How do we capitalize on that?
Megan Tschannen-Moran (21:06):
So as a university professor, we were really thinking about that, what parts of our courses can we move into online spaces? And then in that hybrid model, what is the best and highest use of that, those questions, times when we're together, face-to-face. I hope we're going to think about face-to-face instruction differently than we don't just go back to what we were doing, but figure out what is technology best for? And let's use that so that we can make the face-to-face time even more engaging, even more relevant, even better than it has been at accomplishing our larger goals of deeper learning.
Matt Renwick (21:52):
You mentioned your multi-age model that you used in Chicago. And I think some of those can be beneficial. In terms of flexibility, that's something I've noticed just with our grade levels. And you mentioned, um, more of a factory model that has maybe limited us in terms of how flexible we can be and adaptive to the needs now. So it'll be interesting, what comes of this.
Matt Renwick (22:20):
Near the end of the book, you note the importance of trust repair through specifically apology. Can you say more about that and why apology is so important?
Megan Tschannen-Moran (22:32):
Several different people. I interviewed to all told the same story of a time when Brenda had apologized to a teacher when she, after she'd been kind of snippy with that teacher short with her. And that just struck me because there seems to be a mythology among leaders: Never apologize. It will make you look weak. And yet, what I was seeing in my research was that it was very powerful. It was powerful enough that several different people raised it as a story that led them in telling me, "Why did they feel like they could trust Brenda?" And so that struck me as important. And that's why I included in the book, to counter this narrative of never apologize. I think really sincerity is what's at the heart of it, when should you apologize. If you genuinely regret having done something that has hurt somebody else to say that.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (23:35):
And I think perhaps enriching our vocabulary of not just, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." But, deeper, using compassionate communication models that I've talked about to talk about. "I'm grieving that to hear that you, you were so hurt, what was done or said. As we are approached by people who have been hurt to be taking the time to really listen carefully and well, and to reflect the feelings and needs that are emerging from the story that they're telling us. I think it's that attention, giving our full attention and respectful understanding of empathizing with the impact of what decision. We may regret the impact, but it was a decision we still stand by, or there may be times when we think, "Well, yeah, that wasn't a great decision. I wish I'd made a different decision." I think its that quality of listening and care of giving our full attention when somebody is sharing with us. That they were hurt or angry or upset by something that we did are sad, just that openness. So I don't think it's really the words, "I'm sorry," that are so helpful in those situations. I think it's demonstrating our care.
Matt Renwick (25:07):
And the routine, that the protocol, that you provided in the book, the four steps I have now used, I found it very effective and again, our care and our thoughtfulness and being a reflective practitioner really.
Matt Renwick (25:21):
Thank you, Megan, for joining us. The book is Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools. It's in its second edition and trust is a critical aspect of leadership. And I would say it's deserves our full attention and priority before we can engage in a lot of the other work that we do. So thank you for sharing your work and your experiences.
Megan Tschannen-Moran (25:45):
Thank you, Matt. I appreciate this opportunity to share.
Why Trust Matters More Than Ever: A Conversation with Megan Tschannen-Moran