No personal, team, school, or systemwide goal can be accomplished without trust. Trust involves nurturing the heart and channeling all parties’ emotional and mental energies toward purposeful ends. Trust is crucial for creating the healthy relationships on which school and student success depend.

At Performance Fact, we’ve seen how the practitioner’s effectiveness and ultimate success depend on their self-trust and ability to engender trust in others. For example, the leader’s capacity to accelerate continuous improvement of student learning, teaching practices, leadership practices, and organizational practices rests on their own self-efficacy and how much the team and stakeholders trust them. The teacher’s effectiveness with students rests on the teacher’s self-efficacy and the trust between teacher and students. Similarly, the relationship between home and school – a significant contributor to student achievement – is heavily influenced by the agency each party brings to their interaction and the relationship trust they generate together.

Responsibility, accountability, empowerment, and continuous learning are crucial for achieving vision and goals. However, each of these factors depends on trust: trust in self, trust in others, and trust in the goal. Each practitioner’s internal trust compass sets the tone for their personal success and their relationship outcomes.

▶ Recommended launch date for the Building Trust and Authentic Relationships process: Start of school year