spiritual leadership

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