In this article in AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice, Justin Benna (North Dakota State University) examines how five elementary principals in New England perceived and experienced their superintendents’ trustworthiness. From in-depth interviews and a review of the research, Benna found that principals gauged their bosses’ trustworthiness in four overlapping (and sometimes contradictory) areas:
- Support – This included the ways in which principals saw their superintendent enhancing and reinforcing their own school leadership, specifically:
- Providing guidance – Offering suggestions, answering questions, and helping to generate options as principals dealt with problems, opportunities, and projects. Guidance could be helpful, but sometimes the superintendent became directive in ways the principal saw as impinging on their autonomy. A key variable was the principal’s sense of the superintendent’s competence.
-Taking action – Superintendents scored trustworthiness points when they reinforced a principal’s decisions (especially helpful when extra clout was needed in personnel decisions) and protected them from potential negative consequences.
- Building a supportive district team – Principals appreciated the superintendent orchestrating staff support on legal issues, state requirements, and curriculum questions.
- Autonomy – The key was superintendents supporting principals and at the same time respecting them as leaders of their own schools. “A superintendent who strikes this balance,” says Benna, “sends a powerful message to a principal: that the principal is trusted.” He found three key areas:
- Volition – Principals were deeply appreciative when their boss granted them time to get to know their school, experiment and figure out their own strategies, and be free from micromanagement.
- Role boundaries – Building leaders appreciated clarity on when, how, and why it was appropriate for the superintendent to step in and what the bigger picture of authority was in the district. In the words of one principal: “Yes, the superintendent is the boss, but I also feel like it should be more of an open partnership. You’re both directing different parts of the district, but for the same goal. There shouldn’t necessarily be a ton of friction.”
- Knowing the context – “Participants expressed appreciation when they noticed how superintendents approached and validated the unique context of the principals’ schools,” says Benna. “Superintendents who sought to understand and demonstrated an understanding of a school’s context were also perceived to be better positioned to provide principals with support.”
- Presence – This was a willingness to “be there” at key moments when the superintendent’s physical presence was meaningful and supportive. The opposite of this was the boss being intrusive. In the words of one principal: “When her car would pull in the driveway, I would start to be like, ‘Oh gosh, now what?’” Principals appreciated it when superintendents were available (when needed) and visible:
- Availability – Could the principal reach the superintendent when needed (while recognizing that they are always busy), and were district leaders attentive, invested, and responsive? Being reachable was especially important in emergency situations; at those times, a quick response really built trust. The opposite, said one principal, was the feeling of being “dangled out there with no support.”
- Visibility – Seeking out face-to-face interactions and being in tune with the daily heartbeat of schools and the larger district scene demonstrated concern, interest, and commitment and built trust. The opposite of this was infrequent visits to schools and showing no interest in getting into classrooms, watching student performances, or talking about instruction.
- Openness – The final trust-building aspect of superintendents’ leadership was their style of communication in two key areas:
- Asking questions, showing vulnerability, and listening – In Benna’s interviews, principals repeatedly spoke of the importance of these traits, which he says demonstrated superintendents’ “genuine interest in knowing about individual schools, educators, students, and families.” Questioning and listening also showed that the boss saw the principal-superintendent team as interdependent, and “that superintendents relied upon knowing and learning from others to inform the course of their own leadership.” In the words of one principal, “That exudes that lifelong learner type mentality. I would trust them going forward.”
- Being honest, clear, and transparent – These three were closely linked in principals’ minds as they assessed their bosses’ trustworthiness. As soon as a superintendent’s honesty came into question, principals were wary in their interactions, and if they had the option to leave the district, they did.
In short, says Benna, a trusting bond with the superintendent was an important factor in principals’ success. One principal said it allowed her “to be able to fully participate and not be afraid. You have to be able to do that in order to grow and push yourself. You have to be able to take risks… And I think that I’ve been a better leader because of it.” Another principal said that with a trusting relationship with her superintendent, “People become more light-hearted, and they go about their day because an assumption is there that you’ve built that relationship and so there’s much more energy for other things.”
But Benna found that many of the principals had worked with superintendents they didn’t trust, and one said flatly that he’d rarely had a superintendent who was trustworthy. “The trust factor,” said this principal, “while very important, is not something that I’ve experienced a whole lot. So, while we would all want a superintendent we can trust, that’s not the end all and be all. Sometimes you don’t have that person and you just have to make sure that you surround yourself with supportive staff, supportive parents, a supportive school board, and keep on going, doing the right thing.”
Benna sums up: “Superintendent trustworthiness is desired and perceived to enhance the principals’ work and professional lives, but it is not something that they depend on. In other words, a principal’s perception of superintendent trustworthiness is complementary to but not required for a principal’s own sense of efficacy, commitment and resolve as a school leader.”
“Superintendents’ Trustworthiness: Elementary School Principals’ Experience and Perceptions” by Justin Benna in AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice, Winter 2023 (Vol.19, #4, pp. 9-25); Benna can be reached at justin.benna@ndsu.edu.
Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #977 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.
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