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Trusted: Trust Pillars, Trust Killers, and the Secret to Successful Schools
How does a good principal become a trusted principal, and why is being trusted so important?
Neither personality nor behavior solely determines whether a principal will have the trust of teachers, students, and parents. As author and veteran educator Jen Schwanke explains in Trusted, principals continually build and reinforce trust through their relationships and experiences with these stakeholders. And if principals aren't mindful and deliberate, they can easily sabotage their own efforts.
In this candid guide for school leaders, Schwanke
• Explores just how powerful a force trust is within schools, where challenge and conflict are inevitable even during the best of times.
• Clarifies trust's positive effects on student outcomes, explains its reciprocal nature, and shares what principals can do to become more trustworthy and more "trust willing."
• Shares lessons learned from her own and other real-life principals' work to build trust, highlighting trust pillars, the habits and mindsets that support positive relationships, and trust killers, the often unconscious ways principals can undermine their work with those whose trust they need.
Whether you are a new or experienced school leader, you'll find explicit strategies you can use to build strong, trusting relationships with teachers, students, and parents. Combine them to create and maintain a school culture in which everyone feels valued, safe, and free to grow into the best versions of themselves.
Neither personality nor behavior solely determines whether a principal will have the trust of teachers, students, and parents. As author and veteran educator Jen Schwanke explains in Trusted, principals continually build and reinforce trust through their relationships and experiences with these stakeholders. And if principals aren't mindful and deliberate, they can easily sabotage their own efforts.
In this candid guide for school leaders, Schwanke
• Explores just how powerful a force trust is within schools, where challenge and conflict are inevitable even during the best of times.
• Clarifies trust's positive effects on student outcomes, explains its reciprocal nature, and shares what principals can do to become more trustworthy and more "trust willing."
• Shares lessons learned from her own and other real-life principals' work to build trust, highlighting trust pillars, the habits and mindsets that support positive relationships, and trust killers, the often unconscious ways principals can undermine their work with those whose trust they need.
Whether you are a new or experienced school leader, you'll find explicit strategies you can use to build strong, trusting relationships with teachers, students, and parents. Combine them to create and maintain a school culture in which everyone feels valued, safe, and free to grow into the best versions of themselves.
163 pages, Paperback
Published August 21, 2025
7 people want to read
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