Does the Academy Have Trust Issues?

DISCUSSION

What is trust? Charles Feltman, author of The Thin Book of Trust: An Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work, defines trust as “choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions”; distrust is “what is important to me is not safe with this person in this situation (or any situation).”³ Things that people value can include both tangible things, like money or a professional goal (eg, promotion), as well as intangible things, such as well-being, happiness, or personal beliefs.³ Brené Brown likens building trust to filling a marble jar.⁴ People can earn trust, or fill the marble jar, one small marble (action) at a time. But trust can be destroyed very quickly: An action causing distrust removes handfuls of marbles at a time.⁴ Examples of actions that may gain marbles do not necessarily need to be time or resource intensive. They can include asking about a sick relative’s treatment, inquiring about a child’s college coursework, and following up on a coworker’s previously expressed concerns about their clinical practice site.

How does trust show up in the Academy? Virtually every kind of relationship in higher education requires a level of vulnerability and trust for both individuals to feel validated and able to perform at their highest level (Table 1).

What do we in the Academy do about this distrust that has reached such a high level since the COVID-19 pandemic started? It is time for everyone within the Academy to pause and reflect on how each of us can give colleagues and students opportunities to rebuild trust. Some suggestions have been previously published, such as focusing on communication, building communities, allowing flexibility, and identifying burnout.⁵ Going further, Brené Brown breaks trust down to seven elements with the acronym BRAVING: Boundaries means being clear about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable; reliability means doing what you say you will do; accountability means owning mistakes, apologizing, and making amends; vault means not sharing information that is not yours to share; integrity means choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; nonjudgment means that in a relationship, one can ask for what one needs and the other can ask for what they need, without judgment; and generosity means giving the most generous interpretation of someone’s intentions, words, and deeds, as well as assuming that people are doing the best that they can.⁴

While all seven of these elements interrelate and are critically important ways of building trust, the one that seems to be most lacking lately in the Academy (and in society overall) is generosity. Assuming that everyone is doing the best that they can do is long overdue. Instructors and course directors do not know all the stressors that each student, colleague, and administrator face on a daily and weekly basis. Therefore, one way to build trust focusing on generosity is for us as faculty members to do our best to clearly communicate expectations (with students) or needs (with colleagues and administrators) and then give them the time and space to meet those expectations and needs. While not everyone will meet all of our expectations and needs, we will be in a better place physically, mentally, and emotionally if we extend generosity and believe that they have done the best that they can. We should refrain from the temptation to assume malicious intent if someone does not meet our expectations. Particularly with students, pharmacy school is rigorous enough. Adding on pressures of family members losing employment and health concerns, some students reasonably have not been in their best physical and mental states for about three years, maybe longer.⁶ While holding to educational competency standards, there is generosity that we can extend to them so that they can address what they need to focus on at a given time. Hopefully, we as faculty members can also serve as resources and advisors for students, should they need the added support.

Generosity and reliability (doing what you say you will do) go hand in hand. In order for us to extend generosity to our administrators, we have to believe that they will fulfill their commitments to us faculty members. For example, if a faculty member asks for professional development funds from a department chair, we are more likely to believe that they will do their best to fulfill that request if they have been reliable in at least attempting to provide similar funds in the past.

Further, administrators should consider carefully taking the pulse of their school or college. The COVID-19 pandemic has placed increased workloads on everyone involved in pharmacy education. Administrators could ask how they have helped to generously support their faculty and staff members so that they can continue to trust in the leadership. Just providing faculty and staff with “self-care” suggestions is not likely to be helpful if administrators do not also attempt to modify the source(s) of the stress.⁷ When was the last time that a faculty or staff member was given the autonomy to say no to a request made of them? Or are these requests really a way for faculty or staff members to be “voluntold” to do something? One way of showing generosity to faculty and staff is to allow more flexible work locations and times so long as timelines and goals continue to be met. Administrators should ensure that generosity is being extended equitably both between faculty and staff as well as between different groups (eg, departments) of faculty.