The Right Leader for the Right Work: Using the TrustED® 360 for Leadership-Team Development

Abstract

School improvement requires a trusted leadership team, not merely a talented chief administrator. This article explains how the TrustED® 360 helps schools identify leadership team strengths, align leaders with the improvement work they are most trusted to guide, and develop the collective capacity needed to carry out complex change. A composite school story is woven throughout to illustrate how leadership-team data can move a school from title-based assignment to trust-based alignment.

No single school leader can carry the full weight of school improvement alone. Schools are too complex, stakeholder expectations are too varied, and improvement work is too demanding for one person to embody all the necessary competencies. Chapter 9 of TrustED®: The Bridge to School Improvement makes this point plainly: the competencies and skill sets required for school improvement cannot be achieved by or embodied in a single individual. Effective and successful school leadership requires a team.[1]

Consider the experience of a composite school community, we will call Riverview Academy. Riverview had a capable head of school, a respected principal, a committed business officer, and several emerging instructional leaders. Yet the leadership team was stuck. Faculty were weary from successive initiatives, parents were asking for greater clarity around academic expectations, and the board was pressing for measurable improvement. Everyone agreed that improvement was needed; the team was less certain about who should lead which part of the work.

This is more than a practical observation. It is a strategic principle. Many schools build leadership structures around titles rather than trusted capacities. The head of school leads the major initiative because they are the head of school. The principal leads the instructional change because they supervise teachers. The business officer leads operational change because the issue touches resources. Titles matter, but titles do not always reveal who is most trusted to lead a particular kind of work.

“Titles describe responsibility; trust reveals capacity.”

At Riverview, the first instinct was predictable: the head of school would announce the initiative, the principal would manage implementation, and everyone else would support as assigned. On paper, this seemed efficient. In practice, the team already knew that staff were interpreting every new initiative through the lens of past overload. A more thoughtful question was needed: not simply, 'Who has authority to lead this?' but, 'Who is trusted to carry this particular part of the bridge?'

The TrustED® 360 helps leadership teams see themselves more clearly. By assessing individual leaders and the team as a whole, schools can identify which components of trusted leadership are strong, which are emerging, and which need development. This allows teams to ask better questions. Who is most trusted in mission and values? Who is strongest in relational culture? Who demonstrates clarity and order? Who is most knowledgeable and involved in curriculum, instruction, and assessment? Who is best able to contextualize change while maintaining stakeholder confidence?

When Riverview reviewed its TrustED® 360 results, the conversation changed. The head of school was widely trusted for mission, vision, and community presence. The upper school principal scored especially strongly in instructional knowledge and clarity of expectations. The assistant principal was consistently viewed as relationally credible with faculty, especially newer teachers. The business officer had strong trust in process, stewardship, and operational follow-through. No one person has every strength. But together, the team had more capacity than it had been using.

Chapter 9 offers a practical example of this process. In one school, the leadership team identified a major improvement priority related to homework policy. Based on TrustED® 360 results, the high school principal demonstrated particular strength in the Foundation and Bearings components and was recognized as highly knowledgeable and involved in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The team therefore assigned him to lead the initiative, and the improvement moved more rapidly because the right leader was connected to the right work.[1]

Riverview faced a similar decision. The school needed to revise its homework and assessment practices after repeated concerns from parents and teachers. Instead of assigning work based solely on job title, the team mapped the initiative to trust capacities. The upper school principal would lead the instructional design. The assistant principal would host listening sessions with faculty. The head of school would frame the work in a missionally oriented way for parents and board members. The business officer would help ensure that technology platforms and communication systems supported the change. The work became shared, but not randomly distributed.

“The right leader for the right work is not always the highest-ranking

leader in the room.”

This kind of alignment supports what broader leadership research has long indicated: leadership influence is often collective. The Wallace Foundation's work on school leadership emphasizes that principals influence student outcomes through teachers, climate, organizational conditions, and instructional systems.[2][3] Hitt and Tucker's review identifies multiple domains of leadership practice, including establishing vision, building professional capacity, creating a supportive organization, facilitating high-quality instruction, and connecting with external communities.[5] Few leaders are equally strong in all domains. A team approach is not a concession to weakness; it is a design requirement for school improvement.

Leadership and team development through the TrustED® 360 also strengthen trust within the team. When leaders share data honestly, they move beyond assumptions about one another. A team member may discover that colleagues see a strength he had minimized. Another may realize that an area she considered strong is not experienced that way by staff. These discoveries can become invitations to mutual support rather than competition. The purpose is not to rank leaders; the purpose is to strengthen the bridge.

Riverview's most important meeting was not the one where the team announced the improvement plan. It was the earlier meeting in which the team acknowledged what the data revealed. One leader had assumed that because she was relationally warm, staff experienced her communication as clear. The feedback suggested otherwise. Another leader had underestimated how much teachers trusted his judgment on curriculum because he rarely spoke unless asked. The 360 results gave the team a shared language for those discoveries. The conversation became less defensive because the data was not being used to label people. It was being used to locate the next span of the bridge.

Team-level data also helps prevent overload. In many schools, the most competent leaders receive every major assignment until they burn out. In other schools, tasks are distributed evenly without regard to readiness or stakeholder trust. Both patterns are problematic. The TrustED® 360 provides a more thoughtful alternative: assign leadership based on trusted capacity while simultaneously developing capacity in others. This honors the work and grows the team.

For Riverview, that meant the principal did not carry the homework and assessment initiative alone. He led the instructional work but intentionally mentored the assistant principal through the faculty feedback process. The head of school did not micromanage the details, but he regularly reinforced why the change mattered to the school's mission. The business officer was not asked to lead pedagogy, but she strengthened the implementation by cleaning up the communication systems that had frustrated parents in the past. Each leader carried the part of the work most aligned with their trusted capacity.

“Shared leadership is not equal distribution of tasks; it is strategic alignment of trust, capacity, and mission.”

The 360 also helps leadership teams identify collective vulnerabilities. A team may discover that all members are relationally strong but weak in monitoring and evaluation. Another team may have operational clarity but lack stakeholder input. Another may be mission-centered but slow to adapt to changing conditions. These patterns matter because school communities do not experience leadership as isolated individuals. They experience leadership as a system. If the system is weak in a component, the school will eventually feel it.

Riverview discovered such a vulnerability. The team was deeply committed to mission and relationships, but weaker in follow-up metrics. Faculty had heard compelling explanations before, but they were not always shown how success would be measured or how feedback would be used after implementation. The team responded by identifying two concrete indicators: teacher consistency in communicating homework expectations and parent confidence in the clarity of academic communication. The TrustED® 360 did not simply help them launch an initiative; it helped them monitor whether the initiative was building trust.

A practical leadership-team development cycle might include four steps:

• First, review the TrustED® 360 results individually and collectively. 

• Second, identify one team strength to leverage and one team component to develop. 

• Third, connect each school improvement priority to the leader or leaders most trusted in the relevant component. 

• Fourth, schedule reassessment and reflection to determine whether trust and improvement are increasing. 

  
  

This cycle turns a leadership team meeting from an information exchange into a strategic development.

Riverview followed this rhythm across a semester. The team began with individual reflection, then named collective strengths and vulnerabilities. Next, each improvement priority was assigned to the leader best positioned to guide it. Finally, the team returned to the data at monthly intervals, asking not merely, 'Did we complete the task?' but, 'Is trust increasing because of how we are leading the task?' That question changed the tone of accountability. It connected progress to credibility.

Research on professional learning communities also reinforces the importance of collective capacity. Schools improve when educators work collaboratively, examine evidence, clarify goals, and take responsibility for results.[6] Leadership teams must model the same discipline. If teachers are expected to collaborate around student learning data, leaders should collaborate around leadership trust data.

The TrustED® 360 is valuable because it gives leadership teams a language and structure for shared growth. It helps schools stop asking, 'Who has the title?' and start asking, 'Who is trusted to carry this part of the bridge?' When the right leader is connected to the right work, improvement becomes more credible, more focused, and more likely to endure.

This also creates a healthier leadership culture for emerging leaders. When assignments are aligned with trusted strengths, developing leaders can be mentored in new areas rather than thrown into work for which they have little credibility. A principal strong in instructional leadership can co-lead with an assistant principal who needs to grow in that area. A relationally strong leader can help a more systems-oriented leader understand stakeholder experience. The team becomes a workshop for leadership formation.

At the end of Riverview's process, the most important outcome was not only a clearer homework policy. The deeper gain was a healthier leadership culture. Teachers saw leaders listening before deciding. Parents saw the school communicate more coherently. Board members saw a team working from evidence rather than instinct. Emerging leaders gained guided experience. The right leader had been connected to the right work, and the team as a whole became more trustworthy in the process.

The TrustED® 360 also helps teams talk about weaknesses without personalizing them. Instead of saying, 'You are not good at this,' the team can say, 'Our data indicates that this component of the bridge needs attention.' That shared language lowers defensiveness and raises responsibility. The focus remains on the school's mission and the community's need for a trustworthy bridge.

That is the promise of leadership-team development through the TrustED® 360. It does not remove the burden of school improvement, but it distributes that burden wisely. It helps leaders see where trust already exists, where trust must be strengthened, and how the work of improvement can be carried out by a team rather than a title. Schools do not need heroic leaders trying to be trusted in every way at once. They need trusted leadership teams, aligned to the right work, building the bridge together.

“Schools do not need heroic leaders trying to be trusted in every way at once. They need trusted leadership teams building the bridge together.”

End Notes

[1] Toby A. Travis, TrustED: The Bridge to School Improvement (2021), Chapter 9, especially 'The Value of a School Leader 360 Assessment' and 'Putting Data to Work.'

[2] Kenneth Leithwood, Karen Seashore Louis, Stephen Anderson, and Kyla Wahlstrom, How Leadership Influences Student Learning (The Wallace Foundation, 2004); Karen Seashore Louis et al., Investigating the Links to Improved Student Learning (The Wallace Foundation, 2010).

[3] Jason A. Grissom, Anna J. Egalite, and Constance A. Lindsay, How Principals Affect Students and Schools: A Systematic Synthesis of Two Decades of Research (The Wallace Foundation, 2021).

[4] Robert J. Marzano, Timothy Waters, and Brian A. McNulty, School Leadership That Works: From Research to Results (ASCD, 2005).

[5] Michael T. Hitt and Pamela D. Tucker, 'Systematic Review of Key Leader Practices Found to Influence Student Achievement,' Review of Educational Research 86, no. 2 (2016): 531-569.

[6] Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker, Thomas W. Many, and Mike Mattos, Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work, 3rd ed. (Solution Tree, 2016/2018 editions).

[7] Learning Forward, Standards for Professional Learning (2022), emphasizing equity, curriculum, professional expertise, leadership, resources, data, learning designs, implementation, and outcomes.

[8] Anthony S. Bryk and Barbara Schneider, Trust in Schools: A Core Resource for Improvement (Russell Sage Foundation, 2002); Megan Tschannen-Moran, Trust Matters: Leadership for Successful Schools, 2nd ed. (Jossey-Bass, 2014).

[9] James W. Smither, Manuel London, and Richard R. Reilly, 'Does Performance Improve Following Multisource Feedback? A Theoretical Model, Meta-Analysis, and Review of Empirical Findings,' Personnel Psychology 58, no. 1 (2005): 33-66.

[10] John Hattie and Helen Timperley, 'The Power of Feedback,' Review of Educational Research 77, no. 1 (2007): 81-112.

About the Author

Dr. Toby A. Travis is the author of the award-winning book, TrustED®: The Bridge to School Improvement, and the developer of the TrustED® School Leader 360. He has served as a teacher, principal, academic director, head of school, superintendent, consultant, and graduate faculty member, helping schools and school leaders build cultures of trust that support mission fulfillment, stakeholder confidence, and continual school improvement.

Copyright

© 2026 Toby A. Travis. All rights reserved.