At the foundation of any great team/workplace is the value of trust; in leadership this means the team believes their leaders are capable and on their side. Part of creating a culture of hard work, reliability and job satisfaction is driven by the trust that your team has in your leadership or management style and in themselves and their colleagues. Lyman. A., 2003
Here are some specific elements that play a key role in developing a happy, mentally healthy and functioning team:
Credibility– Have a foundation of honesty, openness and availability in everything you do or develop within the team.
Respect – Appreciate your colleagues traits or qualities and make this known.
Fairness – Allow everyone access to what they need to complete their responsibilities to the best of their ability.
Pride – Create a culture of pride in work and a sense of a job well done.
Camaraderie – Linking the pillars of trust, mutual respect and friendship to foster a positive and successful team.
But what about schools?
We live in an era in which educational institutions are under constant scrutiny; in the public eye (M Tschannen-Moran., 2014), with judgements from communities and governing bodies, high work loads, staffing issues and poor work life balance driving school teams to feel disillusioned. Feeling a lack of support from public services, in turn leading to high rates of stress, anxiety, burnout and depression. 50% of staff in 2024 “consider their organisation’s culture has a negative effect on their wellbeing” (Education Support, 2024).
AMHIE have gathered some useful tips for improving and developing trust within your team, by bringing things back to basics we hope to give you an overview of the foundations to foster a culture of trust, covering the key criteria identified for a happy, mentally healthy and functioning team.
Communication; Create a culture of strong communication within the team through a lead-by-example approach, utilising different approaches to ensure inclusivity and dynamic working. Adu-Oppong, Akua Ahyia, and Emmanuel Agyin-Birikorang., 2014 (See our communication done for you pages for more insight into communication and how you can develop this into a stronger aspect within your strategy)
Transparency; Be open with information, ensuring that everyone is kept well informed. Rosenfeld, Jake, and Patrick Denice., 2015
Team building activities; This includes any activity which enables the team to connect and bond with each other, just ensure that whatever you choose is inclusive so that everyone can participate. Khan, Muhammad Ramzan, and Abuzar Wajidi., 2019 (see our team building done for you pages for ideas of things to try)
Encourage conversation around non work topics at break times; Talking highlights interests and helps you to understand more about who your colleagues are and what drives them. This is a good verbal form of communication and encourages a friendly and relaxed culture, while ensuring that work and free time are kept separate, so they have time to switch off during the work day. Kirkham, Reuben, et al., 2013.
Schedule in downtime; Ensure sufficient breaktimes, even in packed schedules as this allows for both physical and mental recouperation. Jones, D. C., & Kato, T., 2011.
Collaborations; Suggest and encourage collaborations within the team, enabling consistent teamwork and fostering greater understanding and trust within the group. Matthews, Tara, et al., 2010.
Reward team successes; Creating a consistent process of acknowledging achievement can really go a long way to improving morale and developing trust. Victor, Janine, and Crystal Hoole., 2017
Name those responsible for good ideas; Singling them out by name ensures that they know that you noticed, and they will feel supported and encouraged. Cacioppe, Ron., 1999
Plan and implement goals and checklists; Being clear about targets and reporting helps to build a culture of trust and understanding as there are fewer shocks and surprises. Van Yperen, Nico W., and Edward Orehek., 2013
Allow them to give you feedback; Be open to feedback, both positive and negative, to implement effective change and improvements. Saedon, Habiba, et al., 2012
So what can you do to practically apply these strategies and start to embed them into your daily schedules and practices. AMHIE have highlighted some ideas that you can implement straight away, this is by no means an exhaustive list but just a tool to help to get you into the right mindset and track to develop your own ideas to move forward in your own setting.
Some ideas to try:
| Daily | Weekly | Monthly |
| Round up email/bulletin with details of who’s working, what they’re doing and the plan for the day | Short team meetings/sessions to talk about the week ahead/just gone | Department/team meeting with an open forum |
| Walking around your setting and talking to your team – just a hello, nod or acknowledgement! | Notice of the week; identifying areas of success and improvement | Team building exercises |
| Have an open door policy – it doesn’t have to be all day you can even create a slot at a time which suits you | Ensure that you have given everyone on the team at least 1 minute of your undivided attention without distraction | Private one to ones with every team member |
| Daily checklist of things that need completing | Create goals based on how things have been | Monthly checklists of things that need completing |
| Have a brief chat with at least one member of the team – it doesn’t have to be everyone it just helps built a understanding within the team that you are available. | Weekly checklists of things that need completing | Newsletter for the previous month identifying success, failure and anything noteworthy such as Ofsted or implementing a new strategy, or new team members etc. |
We hope that this done for you toolkit has helped give you some ideas to take forward to your setting. Got a suggestion for something you want us to include? Need some additional help? We can give you and your team the training and support they need to improve, just contact us to see what we can offer to help you now.
Get in touch with our team and have a chat about your needs info@rootofit.com 02381 120010.
References/Further Reading
Lyman, Amy. “Building trust in the workplace.” Strategic HR Review 3.1 (2003): 24-27. https://thepeoplegroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/article-building-trust-in-the-workplace.pdf
Kouzes, James M., and Barry Z. Posner. Credibility: How leaders gain and lose it, why people demand it. John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
DeLellis, Anthony J. “Clarifying the concept of respect: Implications for leadership.” Journal of Leadership Studies 7.2 (2000): 35-49
van Knippenberg, Daan, David De Cremer, and Barbara van Knippenberg. “Leadership and fairness: The state of the art.” European journal of work and organizational psychology 16.2 (2007): 113-140.
Hou, Liang, et al. “Linking identity leadership and team performance: the role of group-based pride and leader political skill.” Frontiers in Psychology 12 (2021): 676945.
Woods, P. A., Woods, G. J., & Cowie, M. (2009). ‘Tears, laughter, camaraderie’: professional development for headteachers. School Leadership & Management, 29(3), 253–275. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632430902793825
Tschannen-Moran, Megan. Trust matters: Leadership for successful schools. John Wiley & Sons, 2014.
Teacher Wellbeing index, Education Support., 2024 https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/media/ftwl04cs/twix-2024.pdf
Adu-Oppong, Akua Ahyia, and Emmanuel Agyin-Birikorang. “Communication in the workplace: Guidelines for improving effectiveness.” Global journal of commerce & management perspective 3.5 (2014): 208-13.
Khan, Muhammad Ramzan, and Abuzar Wajidi. “Role of leadership and team building in employee motivation at workplace.” Global Management Journal for Academic & Corporate Studies 9.1 (2019): 39-49.
Rosenfeld, Jake, and Patrick Denice. “The power of transparency: Evidence from a British workplace survey.” American Sociological Review 80.5 (2015): 1045-1068.
Kirkham, Reuben, et al. “The break-time barometer: an exploratory system for workplace break-time social awareness.” Proceedings of the 2013 ACM International joint conference on pervasive and ubiquitous computing. 2013.
Reina, Dennis S., and Michelle L. Reine. Trust and betrayal in the workplace: Building effective relationships in your organization. ReadHowYouWant. com, 2009.
Spector, Michele D., and Gwen E. Jones. “Trust in the workplace: Factors affecting trust formation between team members.” The Journal of social psychology 144.3 (2004): 311-321.
Illes, K., B. Rees, and G. O’Shea. “Building Trust in the Workplace.” 5th Global Conference on Business and Economics. 2006. https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/item/qv7v2/building-trust-in-the-workplace
Jones, D. C., & Kato, T. (2011). The Impact of Teams on Output, Quality, and Downtime: An Empirical Analysis Using Individual Panel Data. ILR Review, 64(2), 215-240. https://doi.org/10.1177/001979391106400201
Matthews, Tara, et al. “Collaboration personas: A framework for understanding & designing collaborative workplace tools.” Workshop” Collective Intelligence In Organizations: Toward a Research Agenda.” at Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). 2010.
Victor, Janine, and Crystal Hoole. “The influence of organisational rewards on workplace trust and work engagement.” SA Journal of Human Resource Management 15.1 (2017): 1-14.
Cacioppe, Ron. “Using team–individual reward and recognition strategies to drive organizational success.” Leadership & Organization Development Journal 20.6 (1999): 322-331.
Van Yperen, Nico W., and Edward Orehek. “Achievement goals in the workplace: Conceptualization, prevalence, profiles, and outcomes.” Journal of Economic Psychology 38 (2013): 71-79.
Saedon, Habiba, et al. “The role of feedback in improving the effectiveness of workplace based assessments: a systematic review.” BMC medical education 12 (2012): 1-8.