Volume 61, Issue 1
Is Your School a Place of Trust?
“Trust is the glue of life,” said Stephen R. Covey, author of the bestselling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. “It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”
Turns out that it’s also the determining factor in the success of organizations, including schools. Here is some of the research:
· A 2023 study by research firm i4cp showed that two-way trust within an organization was the biggest difference between groups that were high-performing and those that were low-performing. In organizations that perform at a high level, employees were more than 10 times more likely to say they trust senior leadership and senior leaders were 11 times more likely to say they trust their employees.
· Another 2023 study, conducted by Slack, found that trust was the top factor in employee productivity, outscoring even flexibility. In fact, employees who felt trusted were twice as productive as those who didn’t; they were also 30 percent more likely to put in extra effort. Not only that, but they also felt more than four times the sense of belonging and overall satisfaction than employees who didn’t feel trusted.
· What creates trust? In the Slack study, transparent communication was the top factor.
How does your school stack up as a place of trust?