S1 E38 TRUST Starts with the Superintendent, Always - Learn about my TRUST Process

Welcome to School Leader Soundbites, a podcast dedicated to empowering K-12 leaders with the latest insights and strategies in marketing and communications! Today, we are talking about how TRUST Starts with the Superintendent, Always - Learn about my TRUST Process.

◾TRUST Process

-All about the Superintendent

-Establishing the brand of the district through the leadership, vision, strategic documents and guiding documents

◾Thought Partner Alliance

-You must have a thought partner

-There is value talking with someone, working through a scenario that may come up, and getting prompts from a thought partner to respond in the best way

◾Ready for a thought partner

-Be open to feedback/pushback, other ideas to consider, which helps you improve

-The best leaders are open to feedback and ready to admit they don’t always have the answers

◾Unique

-Have a personal brand, show your authenticity

-Your brand follows you from district to district, not your district’s brand

◾Secure your message

-Own your own expertise

-Don’t change WHO you are

◾Timing your mark

-Make sure there is a timeline

-Have a personal brand, show your authenticity

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Social: @VeronicaVSopher

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*School Leader Soundbites* is your essential podcast for navigating the complex world of K-12 leadership with confidence and clarity. Hosted by Veronica V. Sopher, a 25-year veteran in school public relations, this podcast delivers actionable insights and innovative strategies to elevate your school's marketing and communications efforts. Veronica V. Sopher is the strategic designer behind several award-winning marketing campaigns and has crafted winning bond and tax rate communications plans. With extensive experience in crisis management—including handling weapons and deaths on campus, natural disasters, and polarized political landscapes—Veronica is an expert passionate about public education as the great equalizer. Join Veronica as she shares her expertise and offers practical tips that will optimize your leadership and support your district's goals. Whether you're looking to enhance community engagement, improve transparency, or turn feedback into actionable results, *School Leader Soundbites* provides the tools and knowledge you need to succeed. Veronica is also available for consulting and public speaking, specializing in leadership development and executive coaching. Tune in and transform your leadership journey with insights that make a real difference. 

Transcript

Veronica Sopher: 0:07

Hello, hello and welcome to School Leader Soundbites. I'm your host, Veronica Sopher And I have the honor of coming to you every week, dropping new episodes of our podcast where we talk about school communications, public relations, marketing and advertising. So if you are looking for some content on how to improve your school district's visibility strategy, you have found the right place. I come to you every week with more than 20 years of experience in school communications, and I love talking about all the things that you need to know to improve your school district's presence in your community. So let's go ahead and get this episode started. But before we do, don't forget to hit subscribe. We don't want you to miss any episodes of School Leader Soundbites, and if you're watching on YouTube or Facebook, drop us some comments. Now let's talk about the TRUST process. I've already shared with you a little bit about the impact process and how important that is for internal communications, the reach process, which really touches on that external communication and how you can be influencing with your external audiences. The win process is all about culture and climate and how important it is to make sure that there's synergy and alignment there. And the last piece of the puzzle with the master your mark system is the trust process. And the trust process is all about the superintendent. It's really about leadership and establishing the brand of the district, through the leadership, through the vision, through the mission, and through all of those strategic documents and guiding documents that a district might have. So let's dive into the trust process. So we've got a couple of things I want you to keep in mind the team number one starts with the thought partner alliance. You have to have a thought partner. So as a superintendent, you work with mentors, you work with peers, you have your cabinet or your leadership team that you work with. And so there's really a lot of value in talking to someone, role playing through a scenario that might be happening, even practicing presentations that you might give before the community or to the board. And so having someone poke holes in your messaging for alignment is going to be really important, making sure that someone is prompting you and playing devil's advocate and getting you as a leader pushed right over to the other side to argue a point one way or the other. So making sure you're having those really robust conversations as a superintendent is going to help you be prepared for your talking points, to make sure that you're on message and you are saying what it is you want to say in the way that it needs to be told to various groups. So having a thought partner is going to be really important. Part of having a thought partner is making sure you're ready for a thought partner. In other words, you're open to feedback. You are open to the pushback. You're open to other things, to consider, other prompts, additional insights that people might have. You're open to it. You welcome feedback, and it's what helps you improve. So part of it is making sure that you're ready for it, because sometimes it comes fast and furious, and if there's any hesitation on your part, or you don't feel like you're open to that, then finding the right balance until you are ready for that. But I will tell you that the best leaders are those who are open to feedback and who are willing to admit that they may not have all of the answers, so I encourage you to make sure that you have a thought partner in any conversation that you have. Now, best practices for that are to be consistent. In other words, don't just tap into a group of people that you feel will tell you what you want to hear, but tap into people on a cadence that makes sense, so either monthly or weekly or in a way that makes sense if you've got certain projects on the table, maybe school boundaries, or maybe there's a consideration for a tax rate election or a bond election or some sort of proposition that will be on the ballot, you may want to have these ad hoc groups come together when needed, but otherwise making sure that There's a consistent opportunity for you to have a thought partner is going to be really important. So then we talk about the 5w roadmap. And the 5w roadmap is really about your communication strategies, the who, what, when, where, why and how. Kind of scenario. In other words, do you know your elevator pitch? Do you know what your talking points are? Do you know exactly what you're going to say to which group of people, if you are only given 45 to 90 seconds to say something, so making sure that you know what people care about, because they ultimately want to know what's in it for them. And two, that you're prepared with confidence on the two or three things that you can say about your district or the initiative that you're working on that's going to make the most difference for your community. So having a roadmap for your communication is going to be important. Superintendents, as you are onboarding new leaders into your system, remember that we can all use a thought partner, especially as we are onboarding into a new district. Or into a new role, having a thought partner there to just bounce ideas off of and get some one on one coaching is crucial to optimizing your leader, especially as we deal with budget crunches and polarizing narratives in our community. If you want to learn more about our thought partner Alliance, then make sure you click the link below to give your team that extra support they need with the thought partner Alliance. And then Unique. That's the U have a personal brand. You need to establish your mark. You need to marry your professional brand with your personal brand. You need to be able to show up for your community and your in your district in your unique way that shows your authenticity. Don't try to be somebody you're not. If you are someone who is passionate and who loves to be out in the community, celebrate that. But if you're not, and you're not super comfortable, find the right balance that works for you. If you try to be somebody you're not, it will definitely show up. But your brand is your promise, so you want to marry your personal brand with your professional brand and really establish who you are for the district. Now a little tip for my superintendent friends, most of my superintendent friends will not just stay in one districts throughout their career. Stay at one district throughout their career. They might go to a couple of different districts. But here's the thing, your brand follows you. So your brand needs to be you first and foremost, and not your district. So if you have a palette of colors that you feel strongly about that really speak to who you are, that illustrate your personality and that illustrate your values, use those colors and if they're complimentary to the district, great, but don't go and recreate a new brand every time you go to a new district. Now, there are some circumstances where that might be applicable, but there are few and far between, and we can talk about those if you ever need advice. But generally speaking, your personal brand needs to stay consistent throughout your career. Show up on social media, make sure you're using branded slide decks at conferences. Make sure that when you connect with people and you send personal notes, that it's got a little touch of who you are, even if it's on district letterhead, so that if you ever do go to another district and they do receive a card from you that is very similar. Now, the district information might be different, but the brand looks and feels about the same. So every superintendent needs to have a unique brand that, again, highlights their values and marries what's happening in the district, what's with what's happening with with you personally, so your digital footprint matters. Remember that it's always there, so don't be afraid of it. Harness it, bring it in and post what you're comfortable posting in a way that really speaks to who you are now. That takes me to the s and the trust process, and that's secure your message. Basically, you have to own your own expertise. You are the area expert, and you have to establish yourself that way. That means having a stable story, stability in your brand, being consistent, talking about the things that you're passionate about. Maybe you're passionate about early childhood. Maybe you're passionate about math and science. Maybe you're passionate about career technology, whatever that is. And it can be several things, tie them all together and make sure that throughout the course of your career, especially if you matriculated up from maybe a principalship to assistant superintendent to ultimately superintendent that you have grown and elevated the conversation, because people will go back to what you've written. They'll go back to interviews that you may have done with the media or with education related journals, and they're going to want to see that consistency. So make sure that when you secure your mark, you're doing it with a consistent brand that really speaks to who you are, and you don't go back and forth on topics. You don't change who you are. Now some of your opinions might change, and that's okay, because we have new research that comes out all the time, or you might be going from one community to another where those values aren't the same as they were in your previous district, or maybe a topic is completely controversial in one of your communities, but not the other. So there is definitely an opportunity for some transition and growth, but flip flopping, back and forth, won't always help, so be very mindful of that, especially when we're talking about some political issues. Now I will tell you that I have superintendents who are very engaged at the state and national level with regard to school funding or things that might be happening at your state capitol. Speak your mind and make sure that you're representing your district, first and foremost, aligned to your legislative priorities. Don't deviate from those district priorities, because what you don't want to do is confuse the constituency that your district is supporting, and you don't want to maybe have opportunities for conflict inside of that now I've also, I'm always very mindful to tell people. That you have to speak your truth, and if you truly believe that public education is here to serve students, then you can't go wrong, as long as you're focused on the student. So secure your message by staying true to who you are and what you believe, and give people an opportunity to communicate with you, to get feedback, to connect. That's really important. You want their feedback, you want to be able to also demonstrate that you're taking that feedback and you're doing something with that feedback. So if you have a superintendent page on your website that might look like a short note to the community, thanking them for participating in the most recent survey and sharing what you derived from that survey, and also sharing what might be changing in the district based on their feedback, because that's going to really go a long way in establishing trust. And then really timing your mark is is important make sure that there's a timeline you establish your brand. We have what's traditionally called your freshman season, your sophomore season, and then we have superintendents who are nearing the end of their career, but in your freshman season, you're focused on visibility. You're focused on establishing who you are, really earning trust with the community, being out, being super engaged. And then during those next couple of years, as you transition, you're focusing on your expertise and your stability, and that's really when you have time for some of that, those deeper level conversations with people in your community and your board and stakeholders in particular, and then in your veteran season, that's really when you're focused on your legacy and what it is you want to leave for a district and the mark you want to make on public education, especially in your state or in your region. So when you have an opportunity to maybe go Keynote or present to a large group, then absolutely take advantage of that. Make sure that your brand is visible, that you are being representing your district strongly, and that you are leaving people with some knowledge that you brought based on your years of experience. So really making sure that you have earned their trust, it's going to be important in that process. So when you think about the master your mark system, we talked about the impact education process, and that is really harnessing your internal audience, educating them, establishing what that brand looks like, giving them confidence to go out and talk about the district in a way that makes sense, all the way to the reach process, which is about your external audiences, and doing the same with them, making sure you know who they are, what they value, where they go and consume their information, and then having a strong communication plan That includes a strong crisis plan that's really important, big part of the Reach process, and then the win process, and that's what we talked about last week. And that win process is all about culture and climate, how to onboard our staff, how to really build ambassadors, nurture their confidence in the district, and address any issues that they might have. That's where your public relations, your marketing, your advertising, come into play. And then all of that is rounded out with the trust process. And in that trust process, that's about the leadership, that's about the superintendent making their mark, making sure it's clear, it's aligned, it's complimentary to the guiding documents of the district and to what the community values. And it's really important to make sure that the board is confident in all of that process, too. So when you have these four components working together, you effectively communicate your values, your vision, both internally and externally, and you bring a strong, trusted community together to really forward the great things that are happening in your school system. So I appreciate you guys reaching out with all the great questions about the master your mark program and how you can pull it all together. Take bits and pieces when you know you need it, and if there are any gaps, as always, in your process, I would love an opportunity to talk to you about that, so you can always reach out to me at veronicasopher.com so with that, I'm going to wrap up this episode of school leader sound bites. If you are listening on the podcast, make sure you hit subscribe. We don't want you to miss any episodes. If you're watching on Facebook or YouTube, drop some comments. I'd love to connect with you, and I look forward to talking to you next time you.