My Leadership Blunder: The Trust I lost
The recently opened Little Squalicum Pier. Originally built in 1912 for railcars to deliver cement.
A single classroom observation taught me a hard lesson about trust.
I was a new, young principal and very excited about coaching teachers through observation and feedback cycles.
I showed up to a classroom and took a detailed script of teacher language, student language, and engagement with the task. My 45 minute observation generated 10 pages of detailed notes and comments.
Eager to impress my teacher with my instructional expertise I showered her with a cornucopia of written feedback: plenty of descriptive evidence, some inferences, and what I thought were thought provoking coaching questions.
It blew up in my face. The teacher showed up in my office with a union representative, convinced I was trying to build a case for her dismissal.
“I’ve never had an administrator provide such a detailed, moment-to-moment accounting of my teaching,” she said, her voice trembling.
“I understand how that could feel overwhelming,” I replied, realizing my mistake. “I was just trying to be helpful.”
But the damage was done. I spent months trying to rebuild trust, and I’m not sure I ever fully recovered in that role. Where did I go wrong?
Trust is a foundational asset that allows leaders to support organizational innovation and adaptation.
“We think about three things that people look for when they trust someone, particularly a leader. To make it easy, we will talk about three C’s. One is competence. The second is character — am I honest? And the third is caring, that we think about them and care about them.“
- Kurt Dirks
What should I have done to build trust with my teachers before diving off the cliff without enough water?
Competence: I could have shown some basic competence by informally visiting the teacher’s classroom, supporting my leadership team to define an instructional focus, and setting up some strong professional learning that aligns with an area of interest for my teachers.
Character: I could have built trust and shown my integrity by admitting a mistake I had made. I could have made space for a difficult, open conversation with the staff about their previous experiences with instructional observations.
Caring: I could have taken time to get to know my teacher more as a person by asking her about her passions outside of teaching or offering to cover her class to extend a planning period. I could show I was truly listening by remembering and referencing those passions in later conversations.
“Trust is built in drops and lost in buckets. How are you filling the buckets of trust in your work?
Contact us for support building durable trust within your organization and community.