Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools » (1st Edition)

Megan Tschannen-Moran is an assistant professor in the School of Education at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She prepares prospective principals to be trustworthy school leaders. Her work has appeared in the Review of Educational Research, Teachers College Record, Educational Administration Quarterly, and the Journal of Educational Administration.

In this unique book on the critical role of trust in educational leadership, Megan Tschannen-Moran uses a strong research foundation to offer school leaders both insight into the importance of trust and tools to cultivate and maintain trust in their schools. Using three powerful stories of real school principals, Tschannen-Moran reveals the mistakes that well-intended leaders often make–mistakes that lead to shattered trust and dysfunctional schools. She provides school leaders with a deeper understanding of what trust is, why it is so significant, and how to build it both within their schools and with the community. Trust Matters combines knowledge and down-to-earth advice which offers school leaders the opportunity to greatly improve the quality of education within their schools.

"Megan Tschannen-Moran explains with vivid school examples how crucial the element of trust is to developing successful relations among faculty, staff, students, and parent/community members. Leadership void of trust robs a community of its potential to improve. Leadership with trust brings out the best in all of us. In such harried times in education, it is wonderful for leaders, and leaders to be, to have such a wonderfully insightful and descriptive book."
–Carl Glickman, president, The Institute for Schools, Education, and Democracy

"A thoughtful, lively, and carefully examined treatment of a very important topic. Megan Tschannen-Moran deals with so many easily overlooked aspects of the issue of trust, in ways that reach both heart and mind. This book is practical in the best sense of that word. I hope it finds its way into hands of teachers, policymakers, school-board members, and above all parents. Trust is not merely a technical issue, but at the very heart of the dilemma of education for a democracy."
–Deborah Meier, co-principal, Mission Hills School, Boston, Massachusetts; author, The Power of Their Ideas and In Schools We Trust; and founder, Central Park East Schools

"Every school leader knows that success and the success of the school depends upon trust. What every school leaders does not know is what it means to become a trustworthy leader. Here they will find out."
–Roland S. Barth, author and educational consultant

In today’s complex and rapidly changing environment, trust is difficult to achieve and maintain. However, trust is an essential element for the smooth functioning of any organization and especially in our schools. School leaders must cultivate trust if they are to fulfill their fundamental mission of educating students to be productive citizens.

Trust Matters offers educators a practical, hands-on guide for establishing and maintaining trust within their schools as well as providing information on how to repair trust that has been damaged. Written by Megan Tschannen-Moran–an expert on the topic of trust and schools–Trust Matters is based in solid research. It outlines the five key elements on which individuals base their trust judgments (benevolence, honesty, openness, reliability, and competency) and explores the factors that influence the development of trust. The book explores the leader’s role in fostering high quality relationships among teachers, students, and parents and examines examples of positive outcomes of trusting school environments.

To clearly illustrate how trust influences the success (or failure) of schools, the author includes three examples of real-life school principals–all working in high-poverty urban elementary schools–to show how they handled the issue of trust. The successful principal balanced a concern for tasks with a concern for relationships within her school and created an environment that fostered trust. The other two principals failed, one because she was an overzealous reformer who alienated her faculty and the other because he lost the faith of his faculty by avoiding conflict. The lessons learned from these experiences provide a guide for establishing trust in our schools.

Each chapter contains a "Putting It into Action" section that offers practical advice for utilizing the book’s key suggestions in schools. The book also provides surveys, scoring directions, and norms for assigning the level of trust in schools.