Customer Reviews

Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools

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2 star:		(1)
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The practical advice in this book is invaluable for educational leaders who are under fire in today's climate. At points, it reads like a novel -- with up-close stories of 3 real-life principals. At other points, it reads like a self-help book -- with a comprehensive five-point model for understanding and building trust in schools. Once I started reading this book, I couldn't put it down. The applications were obvious and compelling. No school administrator should go without reading this book.

Megan's "Trust Matters" is an insightful illustration of how important trust is - not only in our schools, but also in our society. While this practical book thoughtfully offers advice geared towards educators, I found that (as a father of three elementary school age children) it provided a terrific perspective for how I can positively contribute to the trust relationship. Megan's "Facets of Trust" (Benevolence, Honesty, Openness, Reliability and Competence) combined with her "Functions of Leadership" (Visioning, Modeling, Coaching, Managing and Mediating) are brilliantly thought out and presented. This book is filled with sound advice for how to create and maintain trust in relationships - in all of life's settings. Get Megan's book - I promise you won't be disappointed! It is truly a MUST READ!

I am a school superintendent that is reading the book with my administrative team. The reflective discussion questions at the end of each chapter and the scenarios about the three principals have provided for lively, honest conversations about our daily practices. We are trying to improve our relationships with each other and within our schools. The scenarios are real and we can take each one apart and reflect upon the mistakes we have made and how we are going to encourage each other to improve our relationships in the orgaization and our schools. Applying the material to real life situations with be the true test. The author(Megan Tschannen-MoranI is coming to our district to work with us on how we are applying the princples to our team and in our schools. She is very easy to work with and is tailoring the professional development to our teams questions and needs. Megan is that rare individual you only meet once in a life time.
Don't miss this book if you are working to improve the organization or defining how trust impacts our lives.

This book provides a rather limited thesis that will seem rather dated to students of business leadership (i.e. "theory X" vs "theory Y"). Still, the examples are worth a quick read. Ultimately, the book supports its point that "Trust Matters", and provides a rather basic framework for building and maintaining "trust", although it seems more focused on doing so with teachers than with parents and students. As such, it also falls short in its attempt to fulfill its subtitle - "Leadership for Successful Schools". Don't be fooled into expecting more than a rather basic introduction into "trust" in educational setting - and look to business leadership books for a more thoughtful and more "cutting edge" discussion of "trust" in professional relationships. This book would have been better presented as a lengthy journal article, and should be read as such.