International meeting of Marist Bursars – Day 3: Strategic and Servant Leadership

The third day of the International Meeting of Marist Bursars (11 October) had as main theme “Strategic and Servant Leadership”. During the morning, the presentations were organized by Br. Ben Consigli, General Councilor.

Br. Ben, recalling the Institute’s history, highlighted that Superiors General over the years, since 1903, provided ample evidence that challenges and crises in the Institute are not something new. The solutions applied to these crises over the generations provided ample evidence that the Marists have been, and continue to be, blessed with good leadership structures. Leadership in such situations is strengthened when the following characteristics are present: understanding, resilience, ingenuity, hope and giving heart to others and gendering confidence in promising opportunities.

During the presentations, the participants were reminded that the functions of Economic and Financial Leadership, while having the same characteristic requirements, must be based on service to the charism, mission-focused and reliant on good stewardship. The ‘doing’ requirements of financial leadership revolve around planning, organizing, leading and controlling.

Is was also pointed that Servant Leadership has recognizable characteristics: listening (to both what is said and not said), empathy, healing and compassionate, awareness (of self and of the signs of the times), persuasiveness in reaching consensus, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, and ability to cultivate followers and supporters, and a focus on building community.

Br. Ben provided a questionnaire to give to the participants some appreciation of where they personally stand with regard to Servant Leadership. It was suggested that the questionnaire might be shared with colleagues and others to allow them to provide the participants with peer assessments.

Strategic Leadership focused on using the collective skills and vision to help team members and the organization achieve long term goals. The significant steps to achieving this are anticipation, challenging what needs to be challenged, interpreting data, deciding on actions, aligning others and learning. Transparency and sincerity were emphasized. The “how” requires visualizing destination, strength-based leadership (utilizing the skills of others), modelling servant leadership, and allocating about 25% of the own time to reflection and data gathering.

A final section of the morning focused on the importance of succession planning at all levels of the organization’s structure.

In the afternoon session Brothers Jorge Gaio and Goyo Linacero, from the General Economato, presented the several Initiatives that are carrying on, on different sides.

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