Leading BY EXAMPLE

Leadership – or lack of it –was a dominant theme in 2022, so it was very fitting that sixth formers from Jesuit schools reflected on past, present and future leaders when they met last year. Maria Neal reports.

Heroic Leadership’ was the title of a 2022 meeting of sixth formers from British Jesuit schools, and if ever there was a time for leaders to be heroic, it is now! As we gathered at Stonyhurst College, there were headlines about poor leadership in the UK government, the banks, Europe and the energy industry. Could the leaders in our Jesuit schools be inspired and leave with a feeling of hope?

What makes a great leader? The students could not have had a more credible and proven example to guide them as they pondered that question.

Chris Lowney, a one-time Jesuit seminarian, later served as Managing Director of J.P. Morgan & Co on three continents and now sits as vice-chair on the board of CommonSpirit Health, one of America’s largest non-profit health systems. He led three sessions remotely, asking the students to name some leaders and their attributes, and correctly predicted that they would all leave themselves out of the conversation. ‘What about you? What do you do or have the opportunity to do in your everyday lives to lead, to influence? How are the decisions and choices you make every day pointing to the person you are?’ His skilful sessions led us to identify that if we carry the respect of others, they choose to follow and contribute.

The students were challenged to think about Jesuit education as a lens through which to view the world.

Colm Fahy from Jesuit Missions was once sitting where the students were: a former pupil of Stonyhurst, he told the students that his journey in the last seven years has been about discovering ‘what gets you up in the morning’. Justice issues around mining were the trigger to focus Colm’s energy and push him to make a difference. His story challenged the students to think about Jesuit education as a lens through which to view the world.

The opportunity to visit the Stonyhurst Collections, a vast array of artefacts, each with their own tale of a great leader who made personal sacrifices for others, was a feast for the senses. The history of the college, the suppression of Catholicism and the stories of the brave women who worked to ensure the faith continued were all expertly narrated by Dr Jan Graffius.

Fr Robbie D’Lima nSJ shared his journey from schoolboy in Pakistan to novice with the British Jesuits. He described how, by understanding yourself and your needs, you can become a better leader. By recognising your triggers, reactions, emotions and what fires your energy, you can manage change more confidently and navigate through the ‘VUCA’ (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) environment in which we live.

‘If there’s one thing that stood out to me the most it would have to be Father Robbie’s presentation’, said one sixth former. ‘He taught that the reactive process in which one starts to lose control over one’s own thoughts and feelings can be reversed into a creative process by adopting positive habits.’

The opportunity to pray and celebrate Mass together allowed time to bring our thoughts and experiences to the Lord. Chris Lowney emphasised how it was important to find time to do this: he cited the Examen as an essential tool for the workplace.

Finally, each student paired with someone from a different school to prepare a presentation. The fruits of the conference were well encapsulated in one of the presentation themes: ‘A boss has the title, a leader has the people.’