Leadership in Times of Crisis

Leadership is  a key component of any organization's success. When I completed my doctoral work over 15 years ago (!), my key finding was the impact a strong principal has on a school's academic success. Leadership's importance is born out in numerous research studies and is assumed to varying degrees by all serious analysts of organizations. However, good leadership is especially important during times of uncertainty and crisis. So what are some traits that leaders should exhibit in a time of crisis?

The first characteristic that should be present prior to experiencing a crisis is character and integrity. Michelle Obama famously said that, "Being president doesn't change who you are, it reveals who you are." Another way to put this is that leadership and character are amplified in times of stress and crisis (since being president is essentially dealing with daily stresses and crises). For schools, this can be wonderful when the principal is a strong leader. But the amplification goes both ways and, if the leader is not strong, that also will be made evident during a time of crisis. "Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching" according to C.S. Lewis.  Catholic schools especially should be focused on recruiting and developing principals of integrity and character who live their faith through daily actions and behaviors. This will prove beneficial at all times but especially during times of crisis.

It is important to be calm and confident during the chaotic early moments and days of crisis. This may present a challenge because there could be conflicting information with advocates for certain approaches who try and convince the leader to move in a definitive direction. Understanding the facts of the situation and making decisions in both a timely and deliberate fashion is very important. Collect the facts, talk to those you trust and make decisions in a collaborative manner.

Being calm and confident is also important because there will be many others at the school who will feel tremendous anxiety and concern about the future, and they will express this through their, at times irrational, actions. The challenge for the leader is that he or she might also experience anxiety and doubt but it is important for people to see the leader as being in charge. One of the reasons leadership is so difficult is that it is hard to outwardly express positive  confidence when one is filled with other, more conflicted emotions. But it is important in times of uncertainty. 

As much as possible, leaders must be honest and transparent during times of crisis. I clarify this point because there may be things that leaders are unable to share for valid reasons. But everything that can be shared with the community should be shared. This gives people confidence that they are hearing the truth and they know where things stand. And factual knowledge is often what is most intensely desired during a rapidly (or even not so rapidly) changing situation. The principal has cultural capital within the community and this should be treated in a sacred way so that when he or she communicates information, it is widely held as being accurate.

The secondary part of being honest and transparent is a leader also has to always express vision and hope in the future. This should not manifest itself as blind optimism but rather as honesty regarding the storms that may lie ahead and confidence and hope that the school will ultimately get through them. This is communicated by establishing a vision for what will be and how, if at all possible, it will be better than before. When the reality of the situation is communicated to the community, and the principal then follows that with a positive vision of the school's ultimate future, people feel reassured. 

A final note, crises are unique, and the one we are experiencing now with COVID-19 was the impetus for this post. But leaders have to be adaptable. For example, some circumstances (like an earthquake) will require more rapid, on the spot decision-making. But the tenets outlined above do hold true, trusting that leaders use their own sound judgement in each circumstance. 

In the Age of Coronavirus

The level of disruption taking place in American society due to the coronavirus pandemic is unprecedented. The scope of the current situation is already such that students are learning remotely and most adults who are able to do so are working from home. The bigger issue and concern is where it goes from here. There are projections that some of the protocols in place now could last six months to a year and there are models for the spread of the virus that has 50-60% of the U.S. population being infected over time. Actually, unprecedented doesn't do this current situation justice.

Catholic schools, like all schools, have had to move to remote instruction and learning in a rapid fashion. Many are rising to the challenge and are doing incredible work. Social media has a mixed reputation, and I am one who has gone on 'fasts' in the past because of the level of distraction it provides. But for teachers during this time there are countless resources available to educators about how to move classes online. You have to separate the wheat from the chaff a bit but there are really credible, high level resources that can impact what you are doing today. 

For school leaders, communication must be the focal point, especially in this early period of transition. Communication is an important component of leadership in the best of times but during times of crisis it is absolutely essential. Leaders need to communicate calm while also delivering the true reality of the situation. It reminds me of the Stockdale Paradox which balances optimism and hope that better days lie ahead while confronting the brutal facts of your current situation. 

The Irish Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, gave a speech to his country on St. Patrick's Day that is a template for all leaders. It was honest but hopeful, true to the brutal reality but inspiring at the same time. Those who have the responsibility to lead and guide others should look to such examples for ideas in how best to balance those two different aspects of reality. And that is an accurate description - one reality is that our current situation presents unique and extremely daunting challenges but the other reality is that we will get through this at some point and our belief, especially as faith leaders, is that we will be better because of the experience. 

That is the aspect of the Stockdale Paradox that always amazed me the most. That Jim Stockdale realized, while he was a prisoner at the Hanoi Hilton being tortured nearly daily, that his current experience would be something he would look back and value to the point where he would be glad that he went through it. That the experience itself would be transformative for him and make him a better person. 

I have used this for years with Catholic schools that have faced the brutal fact of potential closure while at the same time hoping that growth was possible. The message centers around the idea that the challenging times are what shape you and form you to become the school you are meant to be. So when the growth does come, you look back on the challenging times with gratitude because they forged the community in a way that led to the growth.

In the current reality of coronavirus, more Catholic schools are faced with this dire prospect. And I know it is hard to see where the growth or future success lies in the midst of such uncertainty. However, the best advice for schools to address the current reality is to look in an honest and transparent way at the core facts, whether it is low enrollment, financial strain, confidence with online learning, technology infrastructure or something else and own that reality. Then view the challenge through the lens of the long term - what path gets the school to the point of sustainability? 

The hard fact is that crisis reveals the truth - who we are as leaders and what we bring to our communities. My prayer is that each of us can rise to the challenge we face today and realize it will be something we look back on as event that helped shape a future for Catholic schools that will be better than ever before. 

Becoming Educated

I apologize for the long delay between posts. It has been a bit of a whirlwind since I announced before Christmas that I will be leaving my role as superintendent at the end of this school year. It has been a tremendous blessing, and the highlight of my professional life, to serve in this role. I feel extremely proud of the collective impact we have been able to make over the past ten years and I know there is much more to do. The vision of growth that we have worked toward at the DCS is happening in many ways but there are still areas where we need to further improve. I am still discerning my next professional move but I feel confident something will settle in the next month or so.

The impetus for me getting back to writing was a book I just finished, Educated by Tara Westover. I read quite a bit (and I should add for clarification that most of my ‘reading’ is listening to books in the car – that begs another question that could be good fodder for another blog post: is listening to a book the same as reading?) and so go through a number of books over the course of a few months. Educated impacted me in a way that I am not sure I fully comprehend yet, and I know it will stay with me for quite a long time to come. It is a fairly well known book, and it was on most of the best of lists from 2018, so you may have read it. The brief summary is that Tara Westover was raised in Idaho in a fundamentalist Mormon family and never attended school until she went to Brigham Young as a 17-year old. Fast forward 10 years later and she has a Ph.D. from Cambridge and also studied for a year at Harvard. You have to read the book to fill in the gaps but it is a combination of tragedy, horror, resilience, family, triumph and sadness…and it is quite simply one of the most compelling books that I have come across in a long time.

What I am processing right now after having just finished the book is the idea of authenticity and vulnerability and how, for most of our lives, we tend not to live fully with these concepts in mind. At least, I know I don’t – I am consistently consciously thinking about what I say and how I will be perceived, and that can inhibit authenticity and the willingness to express vulnerability. To be fair, I think part of that is due to the leadership positions I have held over the past two decades. Being in that role requires you to understand that your words, actions and opinions can carry extra weight so many times I am hesitant to fully share my honest thoughts. I am aware that as soon as I express my view it can potentially skew how others view the situation. So I do want to empower others, which is great, but I also need to reflect on how much is due to my own inhibition and concern about how my views will be perceived.

That is the ultimate crutch that prevents people from fully expressing themselves – how will this be viewed by others? What will they think of me? If I show vulnerability, will I be perceived as being weak? For Ms. Westover, she went through the early part of her college years denying the truth about her upbringing with her fellow students and professors. She did this even though, in my mind at least, she would have engendered tremendous sympathy and understanding regarding the gaps in her knowledge if she was honest about her background. I don’t want to ruin the book for those of you who have yet to read it but she has to hit a pretty low point before she is able to express her full reality and consequently succeed.

What I am processing through now is how much of ourselves do we stifle because we fear how we will be perceived by others? And how does this stifling inhibit our full realization as human beings? I think this concept is hitting me particularly hard right now because I am leaving a position of leadership. I am not 100% sure what I will be doing professionally yet moving forward but it may not involve the same level of leadership that I have been involved with since 2001 when I first became a principal. If that happens will it enable me to be more open about my opinions and views? Or are those fears of weakness and confidence barriers that still need to be overcome?

I am reading a book by Henri Nouwen for Lent called Home Tonight and there is a quote in the book by Glen Lazore which says, “My face is a mask I order to say nothing about the fragile feelings hiding in my soul.” Simply writing this post is a challenge for me because it demonstrates these feelings. The one take away I hope you all get from this post is to read Educated if you have not done so already. Think about what Tara Westover had to go through to get to her point of success and ideally that will give you courage to approach life, work and decisions with more vulnerability and authenticity. I know that is what I am taking away from it.

Contemplating Loss

November 1, 2018

I haven’t posted in a number of months. Those of you who know our work well know that we lost Gabrielle Benson, one of our Elementary Assistant Superintendents, very suddenly on August 20. She died of a pulmonary embolism and it has been a shock to our office and to our system. Gabby was a dedicated Catholic school educator, having taught and led at both the elementary and high school level. Her driving professional passion was the inclusion of students of all needs in Catholic schools, and she was instrumental in helping to move both our schools and archdiocese forward in that regard. Her loss remains a void in our office but we are moving forward with hope that her work will continue to inspire us to do all we can to achieve our vision of growth.

Any time there is loss, it is difficult to stay focused on goals and objectives. As Catholic educators, we rely on our faith to help guide us through times of loss and tragedy. Thus, it is a cruel reality to have the crisis of sexual abuse once again challenging many of our preconceived notions about the clergy, leadership and the Church as a whole. My sense at this point is that much of frustration and anger is directed at the leadership of the church, primarily bishops who made decisions without considering the interests of those who are most vulnerable in our Church. I have also heard many charge hypocrisy in regard to their view that priests would sermonize about specific sins and behaviors of the faithful while they were participating in similar activities themselves. All of this presents serious challenges to those of us who work for the Church in various capacities – teachers, principals, diocesan staff, superintendents, etc…

The first important point to make, and I always worry that this comes off as defensive or as an excuse, is that the Church as a whole has done a tremendous amount of work since 2002 in the area of child protection. I think a reasonable argument can be made that no organization in that time or since has put more protocols and procedures in place to ensure children worship and learn in a safe environment, at least from my work specifically in Los Angeles. The vast majority of cases that are in the news now are from the period before those protocols were in place. So they are important and significant, because they still reflect a serious lapse in leadership, but they also must be understood in context of where we are today in terms of child safety.

I think those of us who lead in the Church can use the history as a leadership lesson on what not to do. One of the leadership lessons that I espouse is to identify your core. The essence of this lesson is that leadership is difficult and challenging in the best of times, and the foundation of leadership is decision making. Leaders have to make hundreds of small (and some big) decisions each day. To decide is to anger some constituents – this is an important part of leadership and decision making that new leaders have to grasp. You will not please everyone with your decisions, and, as the old adage says, if you try to please everyone, you will please no one. So what is key is to identify a core that you refer to when making decisions so that you are consistent and stakeholders understand the motivation behind your decisions. What this engenders over time is respect, which is a much more valuable resource for a leader than being liked.

I bring this concept up because it is the one that has been on my mind as I have seen the stories in this new reporting on the sex abuse crisis. One of the cores that I suggest to principals is “It’s all about the students”. This is a simple concept but I continue to be amazed as an educator how many trials and conflicts arise because of adult issues that have nothing to do with students. So if a principal thinks about students first and foremost as they are making decisions, they will consistently choose a path that will lead in a direction that benefits them. The connection to the current crisis is obvious – if bishops had made decisions years ago with the core belief that their first priority was the protection and defense of young people, different decisions would have been made and much of the current situation would have been avoided. The lesson is that leaders can never put the reputation and interests of the organization over human beings.

Another lesson that I am still processing is about focus and attention during times of upheaval and crisis. To a vastly lesser degree that the current crisis, we deal with this every day in the Department of Catholic Schools. We have a vision of growth rooted in faith formation and academic excellence, and our task is to ensure that we manage and steward the resources we have in the direction of achieving that vision. But every day one or two (or five), issues will pop up that demand our attention. These are not unimportant issues but they do consume a significant amount of time and can get us off track regarding our intentional work on the vision. The daily challenge is to manage these ‘fires’ effectively but efficiently so we can move back to the work in achieving the vision.

I wanted to explain the reason for my lack of posts and my hope is this one will get me back to regular writing and reflection. Please keep us all in your prayers as we navigate this time of sadness and trial. The best way to do so is together.

The Changing Educational Landscape

It is the back to school season! Last week I wrote an article in our archdiocesan Catholic magazine, The Angelus, on the value of Catholic school educators. I was first going to write about initiatives and plans that we have for the year but it was suggested that I focus more on the human element of education and I am happy with how it turned out. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Education is a profession that will elevate you to extreme heights in one moment and bring you down to extreme lows in the next. I addressed our first year teachers last week and talked about how much education has changed over the past 10 years, and how that pace of change seems to be accelerating. I remember telling parents at the school where I was principal about 15 years ago that handwriting would be obsolete someday. At the time it was pretty radical, and I caught some heat for suggesting it. After all, Catholic schools are known for discipline and nice handwriting – thank you Sisters! But I think today no one would bat an eye at such a suggestion. In fact, we are closer to the moment where the only writing instrument people use in meetings is a stylus on their tablet.

I think the ‘radical’ concept educators are wrestling with today is the diminishing importance of teaching content. When I started teaching the essence of my job was to convey the knowledge from the textbook to the students in my class. If I am being honest it was passive (on the students’ part) transference of content. That aim has change dramatically in the past two decades. Today content is everywhere and students can get answers to any questions in seconds from a phone or device. Thus, the teaching of content isn’t as important so the role of the teacher has to change. The focus needs to shift to teaching skills, problem solving, creativity, communication and collaboration. The other skill that students need to learn is how to process and analyze all the data they are consuming. With so many different sources for data, and some that are not so reputable or reliable, students need to be educated about how to be savvy consumers of what they read on the internet.

At the same time we can never forget the human person – education is nothing without relationships to each other. With the growth of social media and technology we have become more connected and more distant at the same time. I know people who email questions to the person who is sitting 15 feet away from them. With students especially they need to be intentionally taught about how to collaborate and interact with others. The skill that is not going away is the importance of working in teams and collaborating to accomplish goals. Some of that will be done through technology networks but the majority will be done interacting on a one on one basis.

Finally, back to the start and the importance of the educator in the classroom. The impact of a teacher is tremendous and that impact lasts a lifetime. When I read the poem, Cloths of Heaven, by William Butler Yeats I think of the dreams of the students in our schools. He says it more eloquently than anything I could write:

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

ICSL and Catholic Schools for the Future

This week we are hosting the Institute for Catholic School Leaders (ICSL) led by NCEA in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. It has been a great partnership and we have worked hard to build a program that will result in attendees coming away with something tangible they can implement at their individual school sites.

On Sunday night at the start of the conference, I shared with the attendees the recent survey data from Gallup that found that 39% of Catholics in the U.S. attend Mass on a weekly basis. This percentage has been dropping consistently over the past decades (in 1955 it was 75%). While this data can be depressing for us as a Church, it is also informative for those of us who work in schools because at times it feels like much of the talk centers around the ‘Catholic school crisis’. While Catholic schools are struggling, they are an indication of the larger struggle the Church itself is facing. We can also choose to see this as an opportunity for us in Catholic education because we have the future faithful in our schools today and our work can ensure a vibrant, healthy Church for tomorrow.

When we consider the numbers today in comparison with over 60 years ago we can become nostalgic for that past. There is a good definition of nostalgia, however, that says nostalgia is simply history without the pain. What that means is that we look back and idealize the past as a time where there were not struggles and difficulties. Of course, that is not the case – the Catholic school educators is of then faced significant challenges as well – they struggled then as we do now and they had joy then that we have now. I imagine having 60 first grade students in one classroom was not ideal for that teacher! In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, a Catholic school was opened, on average, once every 20 days for about a 15-year period. It is clear that growth had its share of struggles.

In The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis wrote:

“Some people nowadays console themselves by saying that things are not as easy as they used to be, yet we know that the Roman empire was not conducive to the Gospel message, the struggle for justice, or the defense of human dignity. Every period of history is marked by the presence of human weakness, self-absorption, complacency and selfishness, to say nothing of the concupiscence which preys upon us all. These things are ever present under one guise or another; they are due to our human limits rather than particular situations. Let us not say, then, that things are harder today; they are simply different. But let us learn also from the saints who have gone before us, who confronted the difficulties of their own day.” (#263)

Thus we understand that our challenges may be unique to our time, but we are also unique to our time. Our faith tells us that we are the ones God believes are capable of overcoming the challenges that lay before us. He has faith in us; it is we, too often, who doubt.

It is human nature to focus on the challenges that face us but we also must recognize the opportunities. We have a burgeoning Catholic population, especially in the West, which is driven by immigration. This is very much akin to what the Church in the Northeast experienced in the early part of the 20^th Century. Then it was the Irish, Italians, Germans and Poles and today it is the Mexicans, Salvadorans, Koreans and Vietnamese. As we think back on those dedicated Catholic school educators who built and grew Catholic schools during that time our question must be: what would the saints of yesterday have done with the opportunities of today?

There is great hope and potential but for it to be realized we must engage in active progress. We must focus on leadership, first and foremost, that ensures our schools are strong in faith formation and Catholic identity and are rigorous academic institutions that use data to make decisions and share that data with both internal and external constituents. We also must be good stewards of our schools, managing resources efficiently and effectively. Finally, we must be willing to innovate to think about how best to educate the students of today, and not revert to the ways we were taught as young people. Building a culture that is in a constant cycle of improvement ensures that our Catholic schools remain great and will continue to serve for generations to come.  

Re-engaging the CTE Blog

As we approach a new school year (and July is shaping up to be quite busy), I am going to make an effort to post more regularly on this blog. I think it is too easy for me to cite busyness and not enough time as excuses for not posting, but i also find myself writing more and wanting to engage others in ideas that I am thinking about. So we will see how long I can keep it up but let us begin!

I was blessed to be named a Parhara Institute Education Fellow and we had our first gathering in Park City, Utah at the end of June. It was an extraordinary experience to be with 24 extraordinary educators and three extremely capable moderators. This was the first of four sessions and it focused on the challenge of leadership. I will be processing for a while because there was so much conveyed, shared and learned but I am very excited for the rest of the sessions.

While I was in Utah, I was listening to a podcast and heard a recommendation about a bit from James Corden’s show where he rides around in a car and signs karaoke with a famous singer. This particular one was with Paul McCartney. I have not watched much of this in the past but I took the 20 minutes to see this one and I was really glad I did. First, it is incredibly endearing – I have no idea if Paul McCartney has just been famous for so long and gets how to interact and appear humble but he clearly seemed happy to be back in Liverpool. And he exhibits great humility throughout as he interacts with surprised people from his home town.

The part that struck me in particular was about how Paul McCartney wrote Let It Be. He talks about having a difficult time and having his deceased mother come to him in a dream to let him know all will be well and to just let it be. James Corden is moved by the story and tells him how his dad and grandfather, who was a musician, had him listen to Let It Be when he was a little boy to know what real songwriting is like. He then tears up and says he wishes his grandfather could see him right now sitting with the writer of the song. Paul McCartney gently reassures him that his grandfather is indeed looking at him right now.

I think these small moments of faith and spirituality are important and I used this little story to speak with our first year principals last week as they went through their on-boarding process. My message was essentially to always know that you are not alone and that we can be inspired and motivated when we believe that loved ones who passed before us are watching us on our journey today. After all, our success is directly tied to the impact they have had on us in our lives.

A footnote to this story is that after I had spoken to the principals one of them approached me to let me know that Fr. Jim Martin had posted an article on the America Magazine website about the Corden/McCartney interaction. As you would expect, Fr. Martin does a much more capable job of communicating the grace and power of the interaction but it made me feel good to be in such great company!