Spiritual Leadership, Part I: Preliminaries

  Having introduced myself, I should say that this talk is not about me, but only observations and reflections concerning this topic of spiritual leadership. When I first began preparing this, I struggled somewhat, because, while I am a priest, a preacher, a servant of the Mysteries of God, and an intercessor for those around me, I do not see myself as particularly spiritual. In fact,an attempt to be what I held in my own mind as the image of “the spiritual person” led to a particularly acute period of spiritual malaise, anger, cynicism, and frustration in my own life. Thus, I really want to emphasize that this presentation is about spiritual leadership, not spirituality. This is a good thing, as I’m sure there are at least a dozen people in this room who exceed my “spirituality,” if such a thing could ever be quantified. Up front, we really have to address the idea of what spiritual leadership is. Defining “leadership” is always thorny, but the best general definition I’ve come across is that leadership is influence coupled with the expectation that it will be used. Leadership is what we observe when, at a parish council meeting, a question is asked and, after a short pause, all eyes fall on a single person. The others want that person to influence them, to show them where to goo. Leadership is what we observe when our kids, having gotten into trouble or otherwise needing assistance, call us first, trusting that we can fix what they can’t. Leadership is what we see when the faithful come to us confessing their sins and seeking guidance and, even more importantly, those precious words of forgiveness. Leadership becomes the ability to guide others into taking your lead, and, particularly in these moments of dependence, good leadership means that words must be carefully chosen so as not to violate the trust implicit therein. For those of us who serve as clergy, our desire should be that our spiritual leadership be, first, leadership coming from Christ and, secondly, that it be expanding. That is, true spiritual leadership naturally seeks to extend itself, not in order to puff itself up, but in order to manifest Christ in the world. Spiritual leadership is about mission and evangelism, which is nothing less than the spread of the Gospel of our Lord.