To develop purpose and direction school leadership and governance needs to ensure that each of the school’s constituencies has a sense of connection to the organization and its vision. This is never more important than during times of organizational change and transition. To stimulate this vital bond between a school’s constituencies and sustain its momentum requires a careful cultivation of the right climate - a culture of trust and transparency. This culture of trust is cultivated with simple but very intentional tools like direct and open dialogue, interactive social networking platforms, surveys with live results available to all, or appropriate, open information access.
This is deeply important to faculty and staff who need to know and to experience that they hold immense value in the organization. A faculty must know that trust is immutable. The culture of a school is simply the 'way individuals, administrators and teams act' on a daily basis aggregated on a macro level. Parents and students take their cue from our process. Meaning flows out of a strong sense of connection and boundaries operate effectively when there is a shared sense of purpose and direction. Trust needs to be a cornerstone value that informs these actions and behaviors. Certainly, the most uncomplicated way to generate trust is to provide transparency.
Transparency is the best way to operate in a world that feels entitled to open communication as a primary channel that we can trust. In a global scene of constantly changing landscape, the best way for schools to succeed is by trusting in each other's abilities, actions and intentions. Research suggests that meaningful components of trust include; competence, integrity, and goodwill, and relevant components of transparency are; participation, substantial information, and accountability. Transparency and trust are highly correlated, and so, as we become more transparent we will also strengthen trust for all of our stakeholders. This begins with administrators and faculty where our collective participation leads to sharing information that is useful and substantial, and holds us mutually accountable – this really informs school transparency.
Trust and transparency are vital during times of change and transition. Change requires the active cooperation of school constituents who need to connect to a sense of urgency to feel motivated to engage with the new direction. Administrators and faculty work closely with the head of school to create a guiding presence in the school. They in turn take their purpose from the board vision for the school. School change requires a credible vision to prevent confusing and incompatible actions that take the school in competing or opposing directions or worse, nowhere at all.
Transparency around the vision helps us all engage meaningfully with short-term sacrifices around our status quo which are systematically planned and create achievable outcomes and inherent rewards for all of us. These small win-wins for the school strengthen us and enable us to use that experience to take on larger challenges with greater creativity and purpose. These new behaviors are embedded in social norms and shared values that inform ongoing transitions. Even successful change is confusing and complex and offers surprises. Just as a relatively straightforward and clear vision can guide people through a major change, so can a lucid vision of change as a process minimize the margin of error and in turn inform successful forward momentum.
