Modeling Commitment: A Key Factor in Retaining Faculty and Staff

Abstract

Faculty and staff retention is not merely a human-resources concern; it is a leadership trust issue. Schools often lose teachers just as they are developing into their most effective years, and the cost is paid in disrupted relationships, weakened culture, and inconsistent student learning. Current research continues to affirm that leaders influence retention through supportive administration, positive culture, professional growth, shared decision-making, and respect for teacher voice. For Christian schools, modeling commitment is also a matter of mission integrity: leaders must keep promises, remain visible, communicate clearly, and build an environment in which faculty and staff can confidently invest their lives in the work of forming students.

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People trust leaders who keep their promises, remain steady in the face of difficulty, and model the commitments they ask others to make. In schools, commitment is not simply a value printed in a handbook or spoken during the opening in-service. Commitment is experienced. It is seen when leaders follow through, communicate honestly, protect instructional time, listen before deciding, and remain faithful to the mission even when circumstances become difficult.

The importance of making, honoring, and, when necessary, remaking commitments has long been recognized in organizational leadership. Donald Sull observed in Harvard Business Review that a leader's commitments shape identity, direction, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and limitations. That principle is especially true in schools. A school leader's commitments eventually become cultural expectations. If promises are casual, trust becomes fragile. If priorities change without explanation, confidence erodes. But when leaders consistently keep commitments, faculty and staff begin to believe that the mission is more than language. It is the way the school actually operates.¹

This matters because teacher retention remains one of the most pressing stability issues in education. The Learning Policy Institute reported that, every school year, about one in seven U.S. public school teachers either move schools or leave the profession. RAND's national tracking also found that teacher turnover has eased from its post-pandemic peak but remains above pre-pandemic levels. Even when a school can fill an open position, turnover carries hidden costs: onboarding time, relational disruption, loss of institutional memory, interrupted parent confidence, and inconsistency in student learning. ²³

"Schools worthy of long-term commitment retain people."

Research also confirms that turnover affects students. Ronfeldt, Loeb, and Wyckoff's study of New York City fourth- and fifth-grade students found that students in grade levels with higher teacher turnover scored lower in both English language arts and mathematics, with stronger negative effects in schools serving more low-performing and Black students. Stability is therefore not an administrative luxury. It is part of the instructional infrastructure of a healthy school.⁴

A recent study summarized in ERIC identified five in-school factors that affect teacher retention: positive school culture, supportive administration, strong professional development, mentoring programs, and classroom autonomy. Another review of the evidence based on leadership and teacher retention emphasized the importance of professional autonomy, development, and voice. These findings are not surprising to experienced school leaders. Teachers are far more likely to remain committed to where they are supported, respected, developed, and included in meaningful decisions. ⁵⁶

The Promise That Changed Culture

Consider the example of Riverview Academy. * After three consecutive years of faculty turnover, the head of school, Dr. Melissa Grant, realized the problem was not only compensation. Exit conversations revealed a deeper concern: teachers did not believe leadership would follow through. Committees were formed and forgotten. Classroom supply requests disappeared into silence. New initiatives arrived before previous priorities were completed. Teachers were not angry as much as they were weary.

Dr. Grant did not begin with a new slogan. She began with a commitment audit. At the next faculty meeting, she named three promises the administration would keep: respond to every teacher request within five school days, protect one uninterrupted planning block each week, and include teacher representatives before adopting any new schoolwide initiative. The commitments were modest but measurable. More importantly, they were kept. Within a year, the faculty climate changed. Teachers still faced challenges, but they no longer felt alone in them. They saw leadership modeling the same faithfulness expected from them.

"The commitments leaders keep become the culture teachers experience."

Modeling Commitment in the TrustED^® Framework

Within the TrustED^® framework, modeling commitment connects directly to the Foundation of Beliefs and Values and the Superstructure of Communication and Relationships. A leader's public values must be reinforced by private consistency. Faculty and staff listen to what leaders say, but they ultimately trust what leaders repeatedly do. Commitment is not proven by intensity in a moment. It is proven by consistency over time.

This is also why the research on teacher retention remains relevant. Teachers stay longer where leaders support and value them, invite their voice, exercise fairness, remain visible and approachable, and communicate in an open two-way manner. Those leadership behaviors are practical expressions of commitment. They tell faculty and staff, "You matter. Your work matters. Our shared mission matters. And I will not casually abandon what I have asked you to carry."⁷⁸

Applications

For School Leaders: Conduct a commitment audit. Identify the promises, initiatives, and expectations currently on the table. Clarify what will continue, what will be completed, what must be paused, and what should be honestly released. Few things build trust faster than a leader who tells the truth and follows through.

For Faculty and Staff: Commitment is strengthened when adults experience clarity, voice, support, and respect. Faculty and staff can help build a trustworthy culture by communicating needs honestly, participating constructively in shared decisions, and extending the same consistency to students and families that they desire from leadership.

For Parents: Parents should understand that teacher stability affects school culture and the continuity of student learning. Families can support retention by encouraging teachers, communicating respectfully, and reinforcing the school's mission rather than treating teachers as disposable service providers.

For Christian Schools: Commitment carries spiritual weight. Christian schools ask faculty and staff to participate in the intellectual, social, emotional, physical, and spiritual formation of students. Leaders must therefore model covenantal faithfulness rather than transactional management. A Christian school's witness is strengthened when its leadership practices visibly align with its stated beliefs.

"Teachers are more likely to commit their future to a school when leaders consistently commit their actions to the mission."

Conclusion

To what extent does your school leadership model and demonstrate commitment? The answer will not be found primarily in policy documents, strategic plans, or faculty handbooks. It will be found in the lived experience of the adults who serve the students every day.

Modeling commitment is a key factor in retaining committed faculty and staff and in establishing trusted leadership. Schools do not become stronger by merely asking teachers to stay. They become stronger when leaders create the conditions in which teachers can flourish, remain, grow, and give themselves wholeheartedly to the mission. Commitment modeled by leadership becomes commitment multiplied throughout the school community.

About the Author

Toby A. Travis, Ed.D., is an experienced school leader, consultant, author, and creator of the TrustED^® framework. His work focuses on helping schools and organizations build trusted leadership, strengthen stakeholder relationships, improve organizational health, and pursue meaningful school improvement through research-informed and mission-aligned practices.

©2026 Toby A. Travis. All rights reserved.

Endnotes

*Named changed to protect privacy and confidentiality.

1. Donald N. Sull, "Managing by Commitments," Harvard Business Review 81 (2003).

2. Tan T. Wei, Desiree Carver-Thomas, and Emma García, Teacher Turnover in the United States: Who Moves, Who Leaves, and Why, Learning Policy Institute, 2026, https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/teacher-turnover-united-states-report.

3. Heather L. Schwartz and Melissa Kay Diliberti, Educator Turnover Rates Stabilize After the Pandemic, RAND Corporation, 2026, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4737-1.html.

4. Matthew Ronfeldt, Susanna Loeb, and James Wyckoff, "How Teacher Turnover Harms Student Achievement," American Educational Research Journal 50, no. 1 (2013): 4-36; also available through ERIC, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ995828.

5. Josh Flores and James V. Shuls, "The Five Factors: How School Leaders Can Improve Teacher Retention," Journal of Education and Learning 13, no. 4 (2024), available through ERIC, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1431320.pdf.

6. "Leadership for Teacher Retention: Exploring the Evidence Base on Why and How School Leadership Matters," Oxford Review of Education (2024), https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2024.2432635.

7. J. H. Waddell, "Fostering Relationships to Increase Teacher Retention in Urban Schools," Journal of Curriculum and Instruction 4 (2010).

8. Janet A. Cornella, "Principal Leadership: The Missing Link in Teacher Retention," Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences 71, no. 9-A (2011): 3181.