spiritual leadership
TRANSCRIPT
David Hoyle
Pieter Bruegel, The
Adoration of the Kings
Pieter Bruegel
Desidia
The weasel word
Spiritual, but not
religious
Religious, but not
spiritual
Faith and Spirituality
Faith The concepts Spirituality The actions
and doctrines: God, and feelings
Forgiveness
We all have a spirituality
I am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced everything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced, had no existence.
Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit
It could be damaging
Nothing now can come to any good
It is very often…
I went for a walk in the
woods
Spirituality is
…and not necessarily Christian or even religious
Spirituality is:
Belief
Awe
Transcendence
Meaning
Self Knowledge
…
It must not be vague
William Matthews the four subjects of poetry:
1. I went out into the woods today, and it made
me feel, you know, sort of religious.
2. We're not getting any younger.
3. It sure is cold and lonely
(a) without you, honey,
or (b) with you, honey.
4. Sadness seems but the other side of the coin of
happiness, and vice versa, and in any case the
coin is too soon spent, and on what we know
not what.
Pieter Breugel,
Fall of Icarus
The fixed is the
world without fire –
dead flint, dead
tinder; and nowhere
a spark. It is motion
without
direction, force
without power
Put another way…
A boat that needs
wind
A school that needs
purpose, direction, a
spirit
The spirit is breath
and speech
A sense of purpose
Where are we going? Why?
Why is it important?
How? It needs to be yours
A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval Mark Twain
How? The very real danger
The root of all sin is fear, the very deep fear that we are nothing… To sin is always to construct an illusory self that we can only admire, instead of the real self that we can only love Herbert McCabe
How? Can you name it?
What matters?
Why does it matter?
How do I set priorities?
How? Can you share and
communicate it?
I say there are three very basic things that someone who accepts a senior leadership post requires.
First, that they understand what it is to serve.
Second, that their love and respect for what their colleagues are about is robust.
Third, I don’t have to question their commitment. (Bishop Mike)
They are authentic
Can you resource it?
Where are the wells?
Who helps?
If it is all about noticing do you have a vantage point?
How? What are the challenges?
Fear
Muddying the water
The temptation of office
Objectives
Despair
Overwork and exhaustion
Spirituality
Mr Gove said: “We need to refocus inspection on the principal purpose of schools improving teaching and learning and dramatically reduce the time and energy spent on other existing bureaucratic duties.”
Or Hope?
Not forced, not defined
Angels fly because they take themselves lightly G K Chesterton
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a colour slide…
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
Billy Collins