Edward Elgar Publishing The Lifecycle of Trust in Education: Leaders as Moral Agents

Understanding the dynamics of trust is an imperative undertaking for educational leaders. In this book, using an ecological perspective of the lifecycle, the authors situate trust as an essential ingredient of school leaders’ moral agency and ethical decision making. Based on their 15 years of research on trust in education, the authors describe the nature and dimensions of trust, its importance and imperative, and its fragility and usefulness for school leaders, positioning them as trust brokers in school organizations. The book offers a detailed description of trust’s lifecycle stages, namely establishing, maintaining, sustaining, breaking, and restoring, as pertinent to educational settings. It discusses leaders' trust brokering in relation to social capital and psychological contract and interconnected hosting virtues of compassion, hope, and trust. The authors conclude with the role of maturing vision of moral agency, the subjective and objective responsibilities of educational leaders, and the necessary ethical commitments and courage to enact transformative practices in order to provide trustworthy leadership. With its theoretical and empirical basis, this book is an excellent resource for scholars in the fields of education, business, and leadership. It is also a valuable resource as required or supplementary reading for graduate courses in educational administration, leadership, and policy studies. Practitioners in these areas will find valuable insights that they can incorporate into their work.