INSTITUTIONS LEADERSHIP THE BENEDICTINE HALLMARKS 1 Nothing that

INSTITUTIONS LEADERSHIP THE BENEDICTINE HALLMARKS 1

“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. ” Reinhold Niebuhr 2

INSTITUTIONS LEADERSHIP THE BENEDICTINE HALLMARKS 3

GENERAL PROLOGUE I • Leadership is not Management • Mission Stewards • Formation into mission – by whom? 4

GENERAL PROLOGUE II • Lay Employees not Vowed to the Community not Vowed to Lay Employees • Mutuality, Reciprocity of Commitment and Expectation • Do not Expect Greater Commitment from People than Institution willing to make to People. 5

THEOLOGICAL PROLOGUE • How we see Leadership is Shaped by How we see God and God’s Relation to the World • Sovereignty: Power over and Power with o Power Over: P = I 2 x R § Zero-Sum o Power With: Empowerment • Trinity o Difference not a Threat to Identity 6

ON THINKING INSTITUTIONALLY HUGH HECLO • Distrust of Institutions • Argues for the Importance of Thinking Institutionally for the Social Fabric 7

“New generations don’t invent institutional practices. These practices are passed down and evolve. So the institutionalist has a deep reverence for those who came before and built up the rules that he has temporarily taken delivery of. … The rules of a profession or an institution are not like traffic regulations. They are deeply woven into the identity of the people who practice them. ” 8

“A teacher’s relationship to the craft of teaching, an athlete’s relationship to her sport, a farmer’s relation to her land is not an individual choice that can be easily reversed when psychic losses exceed psychic profits. … The connection is more like a covenant. There will be many long periods when you put more into your institutions than you get out. ” David Brooks on Heclo 9

Harvard Faculty on the purpose of liberal education: “to unsettle presumptions, to defamiliarize the familiar, to reveal what is going on beneath and behind appearances, to disorient young people and to help them to find ways to reorient themselves. ” As Brooks observes in citing this, “The [Harvard] report implied an entire way of living. Individuals should learn to think for themselves. They should be skeptical of pre-existing arrangements. They should break free from the way they were raised, examine life from the outside and discover their own values. ” 10

Institutional Embodiment of the Hallmarks • Hallmarks not free floating • Not only personal • Live in our Institutions • Our responsibility 11

Technical & Adaptive Leadership Ron Heifetz • Leadership Without Easy Answers • Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading • The Practice of Adaptive Leadership 12

TECHNICAL Challenges & Leadership Relatively routine problems Have necessary know-how and procedures Expert can fix it for us Example: Physician fixing a problem with pill or surgery • Patient can shift problem to expert • The problem is fixed. • We go on as before. • • 13

ADAPTIVE Change & Leadership • • • INDIVIDUALS Not routine. Usually more system-wide Lack knowledge to “fix” the problem An expert cannot fix it for us. Heart Disease: Physician cannot fix it alone • Patient needs to change – adapt • Doctor needs to facilitate that Need to learn new ways of doing things Cannot go on as before. New normal. 14

ADAPTIVE Challenges & Leadership • • ORGANIZATIONS Gap between identity or values & behavior Adaptive work closes that gap Respond to changing environment without losing identity Rethink Identity • What IS important to who we are? • What must be preserved? • What can be changed to adapt? 15

ADAPTIVE Challenges & Leadership ORGANIZATIONS • Rethink Identity o What IS important to who we are? o What must be preserved? o What can be changed to adapt? • Demands innovation and learning across organization • Requires participation of all • Leaders facilitate that participation 16

Single most common leadership failure is treating an adaptive challenge as if it were a technical one. -- Ron Heifetz 17

Technical & Adaptive Leadership • Much of what we do as leaders is Technical o Tasks – Repeat. . . • The most important work we do as leaders is Adaptive 18

Benedictine Education No program of Benedictine Education An Educational Ethos Or “Social Imaginary” The way “we collectively imagine … our social life, ” that shapes the reciprocal “relation between practices and the background understanding behind them. ” Charles Taylor • Shapes Institutional Life • • 19

HALLMARKS DOCUMENT STRUCTURE • • “Hallmarks” Prologue: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition Context: Monasticism & North America Ten Hallmarks: o Roots in Monastic Tradition & Community o What it Means at an Educational Institution o Concrete Forms at our Schools 20

HALLMARKS DOCUMENT STRUCTURE 1. Love of Christ and Neighbor 6. Discipline 2. Prayer 7. Humility 3. Stability 8. Stewardship 4. Conversatio 9. Hospitality 5. Obedience 10. Community 21

HALLMARKS OF THE BENEDICTINE ETHOS • Lectio Divina • Mindfulness • See Beyond the Surface • Maria Lichtmann, The Teacher’s Way • Love of Learning & Desire for God • How we Live What we Know • Paideia 22

BENEDICTINE HALLMARKS • What is Worth Knowing? And Why? • Curriculum an Ethical Statement • Educate to counter “Intellectual Obesity” in which we are “overfed and undernourished. ” Lichtmann 23

BENEDICTINE HALLMARKS • Catholic Intellectual Tradition • Not just about Theology • Not a pious add-on, a luxury option to an otherwise complete life and understanding 24

BENEDICTINE HALLMARKS • SCHOOL NOT A MONASTERY • WHAT IS THE RELATION? • GOVERNANCE? • Not Enough • BENEDICTINE IDENTITY ≠ UNIQUELY BENEDICTINE AUTHENTICALLY BENEDICTINE 25

INSTITUTIONS LEADERSHIP THE BENEDICTINE HALLMARKS 26