Research has revealed the importance of trust to schools and pointed to the central role that principals play in cultivating within-school trust, yet less is known about the ways that principals cultivate such trust. Moreover, divergent perspectives and varied contexts for examining trust have limited the transfer of trust scholarship to practice by principals as well as by those who prepare and develop principals. With these issues in mind, I examine and conceptualize ways that principals cultivate within-school trust as a means of advancing understanding and practice. A multidisciplinary review of trust theory and research led me to focus this investigation in several ways to be instructive related to the cultivation of within-school trust by principals. First, rather than examine myriad types of trust and trust processes, I center on the development of knowledge-based trust, a critical lens for considering the development of within-school trust given that it has been regarded as a primary mechanism for trust development within organizations. Second, I consider two important within-school trust referents that are directly or indirectly responsive to principal activity: trust in leader and trust between colleagues. From this perspective, I explore organizational benefits derived by trust in leader and by trust in colleagues; I also examine and conceptualize ways that principals cultivate both forms of within-school trust. Finally, I share implications for practice and future research.
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