Keep Your Leadership Cred

When implemented in two different locations or classrooms, the same program or initiative can produce totally different outcomes. The rationale behind this differential impact is often that the teachers or students are different and somehow unique.

True, organizations and classrooms have a climate and culture, and the people in them have different experiences, beliefs, and values. But the difference might be less about who’s tasked with implementing an initiative and more about who leads it. The credibility of leaders and leadership teams has a significant impact on the willingness of people to engage in change, according to Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It, a 2011 book by James Kouzes and Barry Posner.

Leader credibility impacts your ability to manage and lead organizational change. The change might be as simple as implementing new instructional strategies or as complex as revising your intervention efforts. Those tasked with implementing the initiative are more likely to put in an effort—and risk potential failure before experiencing success—when they feel their leaders are credible. Leader credibility is always in play, and staff members are always evaluating the status of their leaders’ credibility even if neither realizes it. Part of our job as leaders is to monitor and expand our credibility with teachers and staff so that we can get the real work of schools done.

We believe that credibility is a constellation of five factors that combine into an overall credibility “score” in the minds of staff members. These factors are trust, competence, dynamism, immediacy, and future thinking.

1. Trust

Trust is the currency of leadership, and relational trust is like connective tissue; it holds the school together. Aspects of trust include honesty, reliability, openness, and benevolence, which is to say that others believe you have their best interests at heart. There are numerous survey tools that can be used to measure perceptions about trust in a school, but scores lower than you might expect can hurt your feelings and cause more distrust.

Salient points we make about trust in leaders include:

• Trust is hard-won and easily lost.
• Trust is always in play, and it is fluid.
• Trustworthiness is shaped by every interaction leaders have with staff.
• Trustworthiness is not a static construct and requires continuous investment.

2. Competence

People who work for you don’t generally judge your skills; instead, they judge your communication—a
necessary leadership skill—as a proxy for competence. Most people who work with you have not done your job, and therefore they are not sure what performance skills are required. But they can recognize what it feels like to receive efficient, effective communication.

You should have systems in place for people to reach you based on the urgency of their need. Calling your cellphone should be for very urgent matters. Texting can be used for less urgent matters, and email is good for information and decisions that are not urgent. When people mix up the methods, leaders can get stuck checking email, texts, and calls at the same time because something might be urgent.

Feedback is another aspect of communication that deserves note. Feedback is always mediated by the relationship between the giver and receiver. If there isn’t a strong relationship, be careful with feedback, because it can further damage trust. When the relationship is strong, use “wise” feedback—constructive feedback that emphasizes high expectations and the belief that people can meet them—says “Breaking the Cycle of Mistrust: Wise Interventions to Provide Critical Feedback Across the Racial Divide,” a 2013 study published by the University of Texas’ David Scott Yeager and other psychology researchers.

Rather than a common “compliment sandwich” of critique surrounded by praise, educators prefer their leaders to show they have high expectations and believe that the individuals in their employ can reach those expectations. You can put it in an easily deliverable phrase that encourages acceptance and action: “I’m offering my feedback because I have very high expectations of you, and I know you can reach them.”

3. Dynamism

This aspect of leader credibility relates to the passion leaders bring to work for employees and the organization alike. Dynamism asks you to address your own confidence and worry so that they don’t negatively impact your presence in the organization.

Dynamism shows in the quality of the staff meetings and professional learning events you lead, as well as the ways in which you share stories about yourself and the organization. Dynamic leaders are confident, uplifting, enthusiastic, positive, passionate, and optimistic, Kouzes and Posner write. They know that their organizations are better because they are the leaders.

4. Immediacy

Immediacy is perceived as actual closeness—a value of relatedness and connectedness. Leaders who are too aloof or distanced probably won’t be seen as credible by staff. If staff members rarely see you, have a hard time making contact with you, or think you are too busy, your immediacy and your credibility will suffer. People might recognize that you work hard, but they won’t see you as available for them and their needs.

Leaders who make the rounds in their classrooms have strong immediacy. You don’t have to engage in formal observations or feedback sessions every time you enter a classroom, but a check-in with your direct reports every two weeks is advised. If you do this with 10 percent of reports each day, you’ll see everyone in a two-week window. If you have a leadership team, identify who will check in with whom during each two-week period.

You can increase your immediacy by creating a culture of appreciation that recognizes people for their efforts and successes. That might mean sending personal notes home, making positive comments in a staff meeting, or sharing successes with your supervisors. Your immediacy increases when people feel valued and appreciated for their efforts.

Immediacy doesn’t mean an open-door policy. Only certain people should enter your office based on position, privilege, or prearrangement. You don’t want people to expect you to be in the office and be disappointed when you are not there, nor do you want them to bring all of their problems to you, preventing the development of decision-​making skills in others and making you accountable for all results. Make time to connect with each member of your team so that they can raise issues with you and allow you to be where the action is more often.

5. Future Thinking

Highly skilled leaders who have good levels of credibility think about the future: What can they do to improve the experiences for staff and students? Leaders who forecast trends and prepare their organizations to meet them are:

• Pragmatic and humble;
• Curious, yet cautious;
• Open-minded to diverse points of view and alert to personal bias and wishful thinking; and
• Comfortable with numbers without feeling they need to be mathematicians.

Future-thinking leaders recognize their current reality, read widely, and network with other leaders to ensure that they remain contemporary in their understanding of the profession. In addition, future-thinking leaders are optimistic; they give people hope for the future and regularly ask:

• What’s new?
• What’s better?
• What’s next?

Leader credibility can be used to foster change and innovation or be a source of stagnation. Leaders who recognize the value of their credibility through self-assessment and action can create healthier schools where trust suffuses all conversations.

Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher are professors of Educational Leadership at San Diego State University and the co-authors of multiple books, including Leader Credibility: The Essential Traits of Those Who Engage, Inspire, and Transform with Cathy Lassiter and Dominique Smith.