Download SERVANT LEADERSHIP

Institute for Catholic Education
SERVANT LEADERSHIP
“CALLED TO LEAD … CALLED
TO SERVE AS A CATHOLIC
SUPEVISORY OFFICER”
M I C H A E L PA U T L E R
OCTOBER 9, 2013
Servant Leadership 2013
OBJECTIVES
 To provide an overview of discipleship and servant
leadership.
 To provide context for reflection on leadership as a
Catholic Supervisory Officer in publicly funded
Catholic Schools.
 To explore aspects of leadership within Catholic
Learning Communities.
 To serve as a point of departure for dialogue
about leadership challenges and opportunities in
your particular context .
Servant Leadership 2013
LEADERSHIP IN A CATHOLIC CONTEXT
 REVELATION
 DISCERNMENT
 VOCATION
 DISCIPLESHIP
 SERVICE
Servant Leadership 2013
LEADERSHIP IN A CATHOLIC CONTEXT
REVELATION:
“What was the revelation that the apostolic
community actually received from Jesus? It was, first
and foremost, the full human experience of his
presence, his companionship, his friendship, lending
meaning and purpose to their lives. Only
secondarily, and within the context of this friendship,
did they receive explanatory words in which Jesus
gave his prophetic interpretation of the happening
of his own presence in their midst.”
What Did God Really Reveal, Latourelle and Moran
Servant Leadership 2013
LEADERSHIP IN A CATHOLIC CONTEXT
DISCERNMENT:
We are called to live in such a way that we come to
understand the hopes and plans that God has for us,
and His world.
Our challenge is to find:
 The peace necessary in our lives to hear God’s voice.
 The wisdom to discern God’s will in what we see and
hear.
 The courage to respond as we are asked to respond.
Servant Leadership 2013
LEADERSHIP IN A CATHOLIC CONTEXT
VOCATION:
“That place where our personal hopes and plans
intersect with the hopes and plans that God
holds for us, and His world.”
Servant Leadership 2013
LEADERSHIP IN A CATHOLIC CONTEXT
DISCIPLESHIP:
“Do this in remembrance of me.”
(Luke 22:19)
When Jesus, as teacher and community builder,
offers this injunction, we are called to discipleship –
to follow a path by which we declare to the world
our acceptance of and commitment to the Gospel
values of Jesus, in very concrete ways in our world.
Servant Leadership 2013
LEADERSHIP IN A CATHOLIC CONTEXT
SERVICE:
“I come among you as one who serves.”
(Luke 22:27)
“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your
feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. For I
have given you an example, that you should also
do as I have done to you.”
(John 13:15-16)
Servant Leadership 2013
LEADERSHIP IN A CATHOLIC CONTEXT
SERVICE (cont’d…)
We are each called to visibly live out our
commitment to justice and service. Called
specifically –
 To teach
 To heal
 To love
 To comfort
 To support
 To challenge
Servant Leadership 2013
LEADERSHIP
Supervisory Officers
You who are supervisory officers inspire and draw together from
all segments of Catholic education a common vision and sense of
mission for our schools. You are, as well, the stewards of highly
complex institutions. The bureaucracies necessary to manage and
give direction to these institutions take on a life and spirit of their
own. We look to you to develop educational structures which will
mediate a deep respect for every person whom our schools touch.
The quality of life for both staff and students within our schools is
perhaps your most significant challenge. The example you give of
justice, charity, compassion, and consistency will set the overall
tone and ethos of your systems.
(This Moment of Promise, 1989)
Servant Leadership 2013
OUR ONTARIO CONTEXT …
 Results oriented and data driven with a focus on
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achievement, and a reliance on metrics
Grounded in research, practice guided by structures
and frameworks
High expectations for both exemplary product and
transparent process
Learning communities familiar with, but also weary
of continuous improvement
Labour and relational challenges
Servant Leadership 2013
OUR CATHOLIC CONTEXT
“The starting point for Catholic educators is not the
Ministry of Education even though we are
accountable to the Ministry of Education because the
Ministry creates educational policy.”
Our starting point: The Gospel of Jesus and the
tradition of the Catholic church.
Servant Leadership 2013
CATHOLIC LEARNING COMMUNITIES
As Catholic schools, we are distinct.
A Christian anthropology of the human person.
b) A focus on the person of Jesus.
c) A sacramental worldview.
d) A profound sense of being the “People of God”.
e) A focus on service.
f) A foundation in prayer.
a)
Servant Leadership 2013
CATHOLIC LEARNING COMMUNITIES
Scholarship and research provides a rich foundation
for the development of sound instructional strategies
and leadership practice. However, the resonant voices
echoing loudly through the educational landscape
show no evidence of our rich Catholic tradition,
because that is not their purpose. We have the
privilege of drawing upon our Christian faith tradition
to assist us with school improvement, student learning,
school culture, and leadership.
Servant Leadership 2013
CATHOLIC LEARNING COMMUNITIES
The work of leader researchers, including people like
Richard Du Four, Michael Fullan, Ken Leithwood and
Andy Hargreaves contribute much to our work, but their
work, in and of itself, is insufficient to inform our
practice. While we continue to learn from new research,
we need to ensure that we continue to recognize the
value and wisdom of our faith tradition, and continue to
draw meaning and purpose from the story of the
covenant taught in the Hebrew scriptures, and the story
of the fulfillment taught by Jesus through his life in the
New Testament.
Servant Leadership 2013
THE CHALLENGE OF LEADERSHIP
“Leadership is about learning together and constructing
meaning and knowledge collectively and collaboratively.
It involves opportunities to surface and mediate
perceptions, values, beliefs, information and assumptions
through continuing conversations; to inquire about and
generate ideas together; to seek to offer to reflect upon
and make sense of work in the light of shared beliefs and
new information; and to create actions that grow out of
these new understandings. Such is the core of leadership.”
Lambert (1998)
Servant Leadership 2013
THE CHALLENGE OF CATHOLIC LEADERSHIP
As Catholic Educators, we are accustomed to a process
to infuse and integrate our students’ curriculum with
Gospel values, and a Catholic worldview. As Catholic
leaders, we must be equally adept and comfortable
with the need to infuse and integrate Gospel values
and a Catholic worldview into all our policies,
processes, initiatives and routines.
Servant Leadership 2013
WHAT RESEARCH TELLS US ABOUT HIGHLY EFFECTIVE SCHOOL
SYSTEMS
 They establish non-negotiable goals for achievement
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and learning (Marzano)
They create opportunities for staff to learn from one
another (Fullan)
They focus on results (Barber)
They share a sense of moral purpose (Hargreaves)
They support learning for leadership to prepare for
challenges (Leithwood)
Servant Leadership 2013
CHARACTERISTICS OF LEARNING COMMUNITIES
Professional Learning
Communities
Catholic Learning
Communities
• Shared Mission and Vision
• A Mission based on Gospel
• Collective inquiry
• Discernment
• Collaborative teams
• Community
• Action orientation
• Prayer and
• Continuous improvement
• Sense of purpose
contemplation
• Alignment of value, belief
and action
• Faith Tradition
Servant Leadership 2013
EFFECTIVE SCHOOL PRACTICE IN OUR CONTEXT
Michael Fullan
Our Catholic Context
 The change process
 We understand change
 Motion Leadership
through the lens of faith
 The Paschal mystery
 We experience death in
order to experience new
life
 The seed never sees the
harvest
 The imperative to adopt
new structures and
approaches
Servant Leadership 2013
EFFECTIVE SCHOOL PRACTICE IN OUR CONTEXT
Michael Fullan
Our Catholic Context
 “We need productive
 This description
school cultures that are
student centred,
improvement oriented,
and collaborative.”
describes what God
intended for and from
Christian community
from the very
beginning.
Servant Leadership 2013
EFFECTIVE SCHOOL PRACTICE IN OUR CONTEXT
Michael Fullan
Our Catholic Context
 Moral Imperative
 Look to the Scriptures
 We must know why we
 An understanding of
exist, and what we
hope to become
our purpose comes
from the many stories
of our faith found in
scripture and in
Catholic tradition
Servant Leadership 2013
EFFECTIVE SCHOOL PRACTICE IN OUR CONTEXT
Michael Fullan
Our Catholic Context
 Fullan states that schools
 Our Faith tradition adds
must focus on student
learning
that we need to focus on
Adult faith development
so as to ensure that the
Gospel message of Jesus is
lived in our schools and
shared with our students
Servant Leadership 2013
EFFECTIVE SCHOOL PRACTICE IN OUR CONTEXT
Michael Fullan
Our Catholic Context
 Fullan ( and virtually the entire
 Jesus gathered the apostles to
body of system change and
improvement literature)
speaks of the importance of
Principal leadership in all of
this.
 Fullan states that the leader
must be a designer, a steward,
and a teacher of the vision.
ensure that his mission and
vision would not die. The
apostles were given the
responsibility of building the
church on the principles taught
by Jesus.
 This is exactly what Jesus asked
of the apostles, and what is
today asked of you.
Servant Leadership 2013
EFFECTIVE SCHOOL PRACTICE IN OUR CONTEXT
Michael Fullan
Our Catholic Context
 The research states that leaders
 Jesus asked the apostles to live
must generate the capacity…
 to seek
 to critically assess
 to selectively incorporate
new ideas and new practices.
in a way that was foreign to
everyone … following not a
warrior king but a man who
first died on the cross before he
resurrected. The Gospel
seemed to call people to
vulnerability, even though it is
really a different kind of
strength based on compassion.
Servant Leadership 2013
EFFECTIVE SCHOOL PRACTICE IN OUR CONTEXT
Michael Fullan
Our Catholic Context
 The research states that leaders
 Like school leaders, and system
must generate the capacity…
 to seek
 to critically assess
 to selectively incorporate
new ideas and new practices.
leaders, the apostles were
called to bring about
something new … something
people resisted … something
that initially seemed to make
little sense.
Servant Leadership 2013
EFFECTIVE SCHOOL PRACTICE IN OUR CONTEXT
Michael Fullan
Our Catholic Context
 Effective Leaders care about
 We look to our own Faith
people. Fullan writes that a
culture of care is a precondition
for progress, and must include
mutual trust, active empathy,
access to help, lenience in
judgement, and consistent
courage. Fullan also suggests
that improved relationships are
an indicator of success.
tradition regarding the
importance of Christian
community … the place where
we pray with one another, and
serve with one another so that
the love of God is experienced
in tangible ways.
Servant Leadership 2013
EFFECTIVE SCHOOL PRACTICE IN OUR CONTEXT
Michael Fullan
Our Catholic Context
 Fullan states that leaders must
 With our Catholic faith
“hold the vision, while naming
the present reality” .
tradition, we hold that the
reign of God is here, but not
fully realized. As a Catholic
superintendent, you hold,
shape and articulate the vision,
while managing the present
reality … you are called to cocreation of the kingdom.
Servant Leadership 2013
THE BIG QUESTIONS
 How do you develop as an effective school system
which focuses on student learning and school
improvement while never forgetting our mandate as
Catholic schools to evangelize and call students and
staff to discipleship in the name of Jesus?
Servant Leadership 2013
THE BIG QUESTIONS
 How do we create the kind of Christian community
that helps students and teachers learn and teach,
but also invites all members of the community to
meet the person of Jesus each day and be compelled
to justice and service because of this Christian
community they experience?
Servant Leadership 2013
THE BIG QUESTIONS
 Why is it easier for many of our teachers, principals
and system leaders to speak about school
improvement, educational research, target setting,
and EQAO scores than it is to speak about the
person of Jesus?
Servant Leadership 2013
THE BIG QUESTIONS
 How do our teachers speak a faith language that may be
foreign to them, especially when this language is found in
Catholic curriculum documents? What happens if the
teachers do not believe what the curriculum communicates,
or if the teachers struggle to believe?
 Is the faith community in our schools strong enough to
support teachers who are questioning and wondering? Is
the community inclusive and accepting so as to hear the
challenge coming from teachers who struggle to impart our
Catholic curriculum?
Servant Leadership 2013
LEADING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF JESUS
We are all companions on the journey –professionally, personally,
and spiritually. As you accompany your fellow travellers, we
frequently encounter events and circumstances that lie beyond our
control. But within this context, we have the opportunity always
and absolutely to control the way we choose to be with one
another – whether we respond with anger and frustration, or
patience and understanding; whether with hostility and
aggression, or compassion and concern; whether with kindness or
disdain, with generosity, or self interest. There is nothing more
fundamentally important, in your work as Catholic leaders, than
the way you choose to meet, and journey with your fellow
companions on the journey.
Servant Leadership 2013
LEADING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF JESUS
The Heart of Leadership:
“The key to following the path of Jesus is found in
relationships. Living in human relationships supports our
ability to build and evolve our relationship with God.
Moreover, our relationship with God confirms and guides
the way we are to live in relationship and in community
with one another. It is primarily through community, when
we both freely offer and unconditionally experience love,
forgiveness, healing, compassion, and peace that we
experience Jesus in an intimate way”.