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The essential components of trust are integrity and competence. We are used to thinking of trust as a purely ethical quality, related to honesty. This is certainly an important factor; you will not build trust through deceitful or manipulative actions. But competence is also essential to trust because without it, we cannot rely on each other. I would trust my brother not to lie to me, but I wouldn’t trust him to fix my car because he is not competent to do that successfully.
Processes characterised by trust are fast and effective, while those without trust are slow and expensive. In the absence of trust, the substitute is compliance. This takes the form of complex bureaucratic processes that are slow (and therefore costly) to execute. The proliferation of Byzantine policy manuals exemplifies this trend: Compliance is what passes for ethics in the absence of shared values.
Building trust starts with your own behaviour and moves on to the processes you put in place. If you are deceitful, manipulative, and inconsistent, no processes will rehabilitate you. However, personal qualities do not guarantee success – we live in a time when trust has ebbed out of public life – so specific initiatives are required to build trust.
As part of our required pre-service training, I run a session on my Three Ts of education – Trust, Teaching & Thriving. Trust comes first. In the session on trust, we look at the components of trust and three ways to build trust – transparency, consistency, and honest communication. I end the session with trust advice that includes the injunction to presume competence and goodwill in others. You may be proved wrong about them, but the presumption will build trust in you.
With my direct reports, we allocate time each week to read a chapter of The Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey. This is the best book on management that I have read. We only read the chapter if all of us are able to attend, because achieving a shared understanding is more important than finishing at a particular rate. I also have scheduled one-on-one meetings with all my direct reports and direct reports of direct reports. That is a different environment for building relationships and helps people raise issues they would not raise in a meeting.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself in a situation where I had to trust my team to make critical decisions. The school I was leading had to close suddenly, and we needed to transition to home-based learning to support our students. I recognised that I didn't have all the necessary skills to manage the situation alone, so I formed a task force that operated outside the usual bureaucratic hierarchy, including individuals with the specific skills required for an effective response. This involved empowering peripheral players, such as the school nurse, to become decision-makers, and junior staff members to take on executive roles. I had to trust their expertise and judgment to make critical decisions, even if I had reservations or different opinions.
Trust was further reinforced through our communication policy. We adopted a policy of full disclosure, providing transparent and honest information about every COVID case and our response. Instead of succumbing to the temptation to cover up cases to avoid panic, we believed that clear and honest communication was essential for building trust. I ensured that I personally communicated with the entire school community, sharing details of every case and our actions. This transparency built trust among parents, and when the school reopened, we had close to 98% attendance on day one because people believed us when we assured them it was safe to return.
The outcome of trusting my team and prioritising transparent communication was the creation of the fastest and most effective COVID response in our city. By leveraging low-cost and no-cost platforms like Google Classroom and trusting our teachers to adapt, we were able to quickly implement home-based learning. While some competitors took over a month to roll out their response, we were up and running within days. This success was due to the collective efforts, expertise, and trust within the team.
Trusting my team in this critical situation allowed us to navigate the challenges of the pandemic effectively and gain the confidence of our school community. It demonstrated that when we trust people to get the job done, we empower them to become leaders and achieve remarkable outcomes. Trust became the driving force behind our response, leading to a positive outcome for our school and the community we served.
