Faculty trust in the principal: an essential ingredient in high-performing schools (original) (raw)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships among faculty trust in the principal, principal leadership behaviors, school climate, and student achievement. Design/methodology/approach – Data from 64 elementary, middle, and high schools in two school districts formed the basis of the study (n=3,215 teachers), allowing for correlational and regression analyses of the variables. Findings – The authors found that faculty trust in the principal was related to perceptions of both collegial and instructional leadership, as well as to factors of school climate such as teacher professionalism, academic press, and community engagement. Student achievement was also correlated with trust, principal leadership behaviors, and school climate. The authors found that both of the composite variables, principal behaviors and school climate, made significant independent contributions to explaining variance in student achievement and that together they explained 75 percent of the ...