The Moment I Realized My Staff Didn't Trust Leadership... And What I Did About It

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🦄 In this this issue…

💜 The Leadership Reality: Your fancy title is NOT the thing that gets you trust.

💜 The Leadership Move: You’ve gotta be the change you want to see and skill-build to get the change you want to see.

💜 Field Notes: You can’t push past this part to “get to the real work". Babe… this IS the work.

#LetsDoThis #ForTheCulture
— Alicia Harper

Unfortunately… staff mistrust is usually disguised as constant disagreement.

I knew my staff didn’t trust leadership because they weren’t trying to hide it.

They didn’t make it subtle.
They made it VERY LOUD.

It looked like:

That last one?
It hit hard.

Because why even plan AND practice the doggone lesson with leadership knowing you have ZERO intention of teaching it?!

They didn’t know me.
They didn’t know my intentions.

And their disagreement was really just a lack of belief that the direction I was taking them in was even worth going to at all.

The good news?
This was a problem I could do something about.

You don’t build trust with a fancy speech; you build it through patterns people can experience consistently.

I stopped pretending things were fine. Or normal.
Because they weren’t.

I started a rule with my staff, my leadership team, and, most importantly, myself: say it HERE, not THERE.

That moment mattered because it signaled that we were going to have the hard conversations, lean into the truth, and deal with the mess.

Together.

And people would be free to say what they were scared to say.

Even when it was hard.
Especially when it was hard.

Trust started to be built when people saw that their input went somewhere.

No, not every suggestion got implemented.
No, not every recommendation could be executed on.

I was committed to closing the loop with my people. So much so that I became Little Miss Circle Back. I’d literally send folks calendar invites for when I’d circle back to their feedback.

And did!

If I couldn’t implement something, then I clearly explained why.

There were no more hidden decisions.
People knew “Harper’s Thought Bubble” and they knew how I made the decisions I made.

Because people can handle disagreement, but they can’t handle feeling like they’ve been ignored.

Here’s the thing: nobody wants to give feedback when they’re scared that their feedback would get them in “trouble.” So I needed to create the space for folks to openly share their feedback.

But here’s the other thing: I wasn’t about to be people’s punching bag either because that wouldn’t have been effective or sustainable. So I needed to find a way for feedback to be productive.

So what did I do?

I built skill around how to give feedback that was grounded in care and that was solutions-oriented. I started sending out weekly surveys and I’d publicly show some of the feedback that came from the surveys (without sharing who the feedback came from).

I know what you’re thinking: YOU DID WHAT?! How is that creating a space that was psychologically safe?!

I’d group feedback into three types:

For example, if the feedback was something like:

When leaders end [lesson planning] meetings five minutes late, it makes us lose prep time. I know we need to get through a lot because of where the data is, but [planning] meetings should end on time.*

This feedback is clear, it’s solutions-oriented, and it assumes the best of leaders. (Not to mention the teacher is right — planning meetings should end on time.) So I could immediately implement this feedback with the leadership team.

But, if the feedback read something like:

I feel a little exhausted with frequent changes in schedule with the call outs. Additionally, [I’ve] asked for clarification of things and haven't gotten clear answers.*

Then, I would tell the staff which part of the feedback is my favorite part — the part that clearly named the problem of “frequent changes in schedules” or "not getting clear answers”.

And together, we’d come up with ways to make the unclear parts more specific and/or solutions-oriented — what’s been confusing/ what do you still need clarity on/ what’s the best way to get information to you?

Then, wherever possible, I’d implement the feedback in real time.

Not gonna lie: the first few times I did this? It was awkward. But over time, people started testing whether it was truly safe.

When they saw it was, the conversations got sharper. Better. More productive. And, eventually we became a true team that valued each other’s voices, showed care for each other, and rooted for each other to win.

_{*Note: These were real comments from real staff members that I just cleaned up a bit for clarity purposes.
(Yes, I dug deep into my old survey responses to find them. Yes, it brought me back to the dark ages. Yes, we’ve come a long way. Whew… thank goodness for progress.)}

Staff trust is built through competence & consistency.

Most leaders think is built through relationships.

That matters, for sure.

But in turnaround schools, trust is built faster through competence and consistency.

Staff members want to know:

Do you actually see what’s happening in the building?
Will you make the right decisions that’ll work here?
When you say something will happen, does it?

If the answer isn’t consistently “yes,” then they may not confront you. But they’ll show you signs of low trust:

You can’t build a high-performing school on low-trust and adult culture.

You might get some movement.
You might even get short-term results.

But you won’t get honesty.
And, without honesty, improvement will stall.

If your staff doesn’t trust leadership yet, don’t rush past it.

I promise you… this IS the work.

Each week, I share tips and tricks on how to build strong schools through sustainable systems and real-life case studies that you might have missed. Take five minutes to get caught up!

Everyone’s talking about these posts so join the conversation:

💜 The average Principal lasts 3-4 years in their role because the system is designed to break them, but, umm, it don’t gotta be like that so we’re talking all things leader sustainability. Check it out here.

💜 I spoke at Sunnyside Literacy Lab about leadership, school leadership, and how I model belief… even when things are looking bleak. Check out the gems I dropped here.

💜 Q1 is over and I’m sharing my wins (how my hard work compounded 😉), my losses (I gotta tighten up some of my systems 😲), and my lessons learned (because I either win or I learn). Check it out here.

💜 I attended a Women’s History Month Creator event with For the Firsts, and the panelist had me feeling inspired to GET TO WORK! Check out the takeaways here.

Thanks for kickin’ it with me!