Building Trust with Colleagues
Personal Challenge
In one of my previous roles as Director of Business Administration, I joined a school where the academic administrators had not been involved in hiring me. During my first week, I attended an all-staff meeting expecting a brief introduction. Instead, I spent nearly 20 minutes responding to frustrations and complaints about operational decisions made before I arrived.
The concerns were real, and the tension in the room made one thing clear: there was a trust gap between the academic and operations teams.
That experience taught me an important lesson. In schools, progress becomes difficult when trust is missing. Over time, I found one framework especially helpful in rebuilding working relationships.
A Simple Formula for Trust
In The Trusted Advisor, David H. Maister, Charles H. Green, and Robert M. Galford describe trust this way:
Trust = (Competence + Reliability + Integrity) ÷ Self-Orientation
Simple, but highly practical.
Breaking It Down
1. Competence – “Do you know what you’re doing?”
People trust those who are capable.
In schools, this may include:
Understanding your role well
Giving accurate information
Knowing school procedures and systems
When colleagues feel confident in your work, trust grows naturally.
2. Reliability – “Can I count on you?”
Trust grows through consistency.
Follow through on commitments
Meet deadlines
Respond when people need support
Big promises matter less than small actions repeated consistently.
3. Integrity – “Will you do the right thing?”
This is about character.
Admit mistakes quickly
Owning weaknesses
Avoid blaming others
People may forget the details of a problem, but they often remember how someone handled it.
4. Self-Orientation – “Is this about you… or us?”
This is the most overlooked part of the formula.
Trust drops when people feel someone is:
Protecting their own department
Avoiding responsibility
Focusing more on image than solutions
Even highly competent people struggle to build trust if everything feels centered on themselves.
Three years later, one of the principals at that same school wrote in a birthday card: “To the Best Business Manager at XX International School.” The note meant a great deal to me because it reflected how much our working relationship had changed over time—especially since he had worked at the school for more than 10 years and with several business managers before me.
Practical Ways to Build Trust This Week
Strengthen Competence
Double-check important work
Anticipate questions before they arise
Show Reliability
Do what you said you would do
Communicate early if delays happen
Demonstrate Integrity
Acknowledge mistakes openly
Be transparent instead of defensive
Lower Self-Orientation
Replace “That’s not my job” with “Let’s solve this together”
Ask: What does the team need right now?
Reflection
Think about one colleague you work with regularly.
Do they fully trust you?
Which part of the formula could you strengthen?
Because trust is rarely built in dramatic moments.It grows quietly through everyday interactions - one conversation, one action, and one response at a time.
Share Your Voice with The School Ops Insider
If you have a story, lesson, or practical insight to share, I would love to hear from you. You do not need to be a professional writer—authentic experience matters most. If you are interested in contributing to a future issue, please email me at henry@pdacademia.com.
