Alliance for Catholic Education
My kids love the word and.
Can we have ice cream and candy? Can we stay up late and watch a movie? Can we go out to eat and get dessert?
My five-year old son has a particular affinity for it. His imagination creates combinations of characters and settings and plot twists and props and dialogue and more plot twists to string playtime out for what seems like hours. “And then…and then…and then…”
If I’m honest with myself, I love the word and too.
And opens up possibilities. It creates connections between and among things, people, and places.
The word and includes. It builds bridges. It invites. It imagines. It elevates. It increases.
And acknowledges. It affirms.
Put simply, within our ministries as transformational Catholic school leaders we need to strive for more ands and fewer buts, periods, eithers, neithers, or ors.
I think this is especially true when it comes to our understanding of purpose. Organizationally, our shared purpose functions as our mission, the group’s main goal. Purpose serves as a key ingredient in a recipe for success. We also recognize purpose as a vital disposition of Catholic school leaders.
Purpose involves planning. Purpose requires intentionality. Purpose provides conviction.
And, this isn’t necessarily enough. We need purpose and vision. We need purpose and persistence. We need purpose and pliability. When it comes to purpose, we need and.
In a study of what makes strong organizational cultures, John Kotter and James Heskett (1992) found that groups needed both a strong sense of purpose and a willingness to adapt. Having just one and not the other leads to either stubbornly refusing to evolve or aimlessly following the ever-changing winds of popular trends.
Purpose and pliability allowed Catholic schools to shift from in-person to virtual learning practically overnight in March of 2020. Purpose and pliability enabled many Catholic schools to reopen and remain open throughout the majority of the past two school years.
We did this because we needed to keep kids safe and we needed to preference in-person instruction. With purpose and pliability, we have found ways to continue with our ministries and compassionately acknowledge that the pandemic continues to affect our world, especially those suffering from poverty and/or vulnerability.
With focus and flexibility, we innovate, invent, and inspire, discovering methods to more authentically combine relevance and orthodoxy, charity and justice, the mind and the heart, college/career readiness and heaven.
Being purposeful and pliable liberates us to hold fast to the most essential aspects of who we are as individuals and institutions while simultaneously embracing opportunities to more fully become who we were created to be: changing the mascot; reimagining discipline to create disciples; recalibrating the standards and methods by which we assess our students, schools, and selves; pursuing radical inclusivity and aggressive collaboration; promoting participation through subsidiarity; and seeking new partnerships, funding strategies, and organizational models.
Purposeful and pliable. Intentional and innovative. Committed and called.
This is the posture and work of a disciple with hope to bring, living with one foot firmly planted in the purpose of Jesus Christ and the other one raised, pliably ready to take the next step in faith to wherever He will lead.
Learn more about the Mary Ann Remick Leadership Program at ace.nd.edu/leadership.