When I was in seventh grade, on a random Monday in late winter, my best friend stopped speaking to me. Worse, she convinced our mutual friends to do the same. The silence lasted a week.
It was a very long week, and an even longer weekend.
Then, with the same casual confidence she’d used to freeze me out, she reversed her decision. She approached me before first period and announced, “I’m not mad at you anymore. We can be best friends again.”
In that moment, I remember thinking she looked very tall.
Stunned, relieved, and deeply lonely, I agreed. We went on as if nothing had happened and remained close for the next five years. From the outside, the friendship looked intact. But I never truly trusted her again.
I am ashamed to admit I later did the same thing to a girl I’ll call Cary. In eighth grade, I essentially excised her from our circle. I didn’t even have a reason; perhaps I was testing my power, or perhaps I was just being a jerk. I still feel the weight of it. Eventually, I decided that being a jerk wasn’t actually fun, so I started talking to her again. We were “cool” for the rest of our school years, but whenever I look back at that friendship, I can still see the look in her eyes: We are friends, but I don’t trust you.
No version of “teenagers are just mean” excuses it. I knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end, yet I did it anyway.
I used to think trust was a "soft" emotion—something built on kindness, inclusion, and following through. I thought of trust as a gentle thing. On the other side, I thought of a lack of trust as a harsh, vindictive poison.
But after three decades of working in leadership, I’ve realized that trust is far more clinical than that.
In fact, trust isn't an emotion at all. According to researcher Victoria E. Barlow, trust is a judgment. It is an internal calculation: “Will this person perform as expected?”
If they do, we trust them. If they don’t, we don’t.
When my best friend abandoned me, I was shocked because it wasn't what I expected of a best friend. When I dumped Cary, it wasn't what she expected from her friendship with me.
For school leaders, there are times that particular teachers, students, parents, or colleagues might not trust us. Usually, it’s because we didn't perform as expected. I wrote an entire book on this topic because I am fascinated by the "crux" of trust in leadership: the relentless, often impossible attempt to meet the conflicting expectations of so many people at once.
Hear me on this: Trust isn’t necessarily about the content of our decisions. It’s about the process of making them and the clarity of how we communicate them.
Are our decisions fair? Are we methodical and careful? Do we communicate our “why”? Even if someone receives a "raw deal," are the reasons behind it legitimate and understandable?
This is the season of staffing decisions, interviews, student discipline, teacher evaluations, and the jigsaw puzzle of next year’s master schedule. We are bound to disappoint people. We are bound to fall short of their hopes. But we can still meet their expectations by making decisions with care, avoiding rushed outcomes, and lead with a transparent "why."
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to dig deeper into the mechanics of trust. Next time, I’ll share a story about a distressing phone call I received from a principal in Washington—and how she lost her job because trust had never been discussed, developed, or established.
Stay tuned, and stay curious—
Jen
P.S. The images in this newsletter come from Unsplash. If you haven’t explored it, you might want to do a quick Google search to find it—a library of tens of thousands of high-quality photos free for public use. Because the photographers release them specifically for this purpose, sharing them here isn't "stealing" art; it’s showcasing it exactly as the artists intended. It is an awesome site.
Pro tip: You can search for almost anything on the site. Just a heads-up: you may need to scroll past the "iStock" results (those are paid) and click “Load More” to see the full range of free Unsplash gems.
P.P.S. As before and always, this newsletter is written by me and only me. Except spell check! I love me some spell check… 😉