A Jesuit way of effective leadership

POPE?FRANCIS: Why He Leads the Way He Leads, by Chris Lowney. Loyola Press (2013). 200pp. ISBN 978-0-8294-4008-9

Reviewed by Chris Chatteris SJ
Leadership is Chris Lowney’s recurrent theme and he has done well in using the Jesuit mystique to interest readers in an alternative style of leadership and different approaches to forming leaders.

So when a pope is elected who is both a Jesuit and is almost universally acclaimed as an outstanding and inspiring leader, who better than ex-Jesuit, ex-JP Morgan manager Lowney to analyse his leadership style and its Jesuit underpinnings?

It’s a happy sequel opportunity to Lowney’s previous book, Heroic Leadership.

Lowney pitches his book at secular as well as religious leaders. One can envisage parents, company directors and Catholic bishops perusing these pages with interest, enjoyment and, quite frequently, the painful but salutary shock of self-recognition.

His descriptions of hyper-busy, continuously connected modern managers who somehow never seem to find time to reflect on either themselves or their work, apply to many clerics, captains of industry and humbler members of the social or ecclesiastical hierarchy. Francis’ playful chiding of what he termed “airport bishops” springs to mind!

Lowney is charmingly self-deprecating in his narrative, frequently drawing morals from stories directed at himself. For example, he recounts of how as a Jesuit novice he did the daily examinations of conscience (“examen” in Jesuit terminology) in a rather routine way. Later, having left the Jesuits, he found himself taking reflective breaks from the overwhelming work of a manager at JP Morgan to help him cope better with his workload.

The penny dropped only when he caught himself almost saying out loud of a new colleague who was “spinning” with the dizzying demands of the new job: “That guy should be doing his ‘examen’.”

This “ah” moment made him realise that he was in effect doing an examen and how true St Francis de Sales’ dictum was that half an hour’s meditation is enough, unless one is very busy in which case it should be longer.

Lowney’s discussion of the examen and its importance for all leaders, from parents to popes, is to my mind one of his most valuable passages.

Interesting reflections are drawn from the then Fr Bergolio’s time as the rector of the Jesuit seminary in Argentina, a job he took up after his time as provincial. Some commentators have interpreted this as a demotion. Lowney sees it as the kind of investment in the future often made by Jesuits.

Lowney highlights this tendency to “demote” very experienced men to the level of training as one of the secrets of Jesuit success in fostering leaders.

Looking at the pope through the lenses of his Jesuit experience and the experience of leading large organisations and changing their “culture”, Lowney proposes a convincing analysis of the papal strategy.

Except in Africa and Asia, the Catholic Church is in decline, he suggests. One percent of Brazilian Catholics quit the Church each year. Lowney believes that Francis’ programme is quite simply the reversal of these fortunes. The pope dares to believe that decline is not inevitable in the modern and postmodern world if the Church as a whole can be mobilised and put on a serious missionary footing.

How will he do this? When he was the rector of the Jesuit seminary the then Fr Bergoglio was asked by the local bishop to establish a parish in the area of the seminary. He agreed and he began the work by drawing a map of the parish on the seminary board, breaking it up into smaller areas and sending the Jesuit students out to visit all the houses within the parish boundaries.

“Learn from the people before you teach them anything,” he told them. Lowney asks what kind of an impact the Church would have if all 400,000 priests in the world sat down with their pastoral workers.

Pope Francis wants us to knock on doors and go directly to people, especially the poor. He is asking us to aim for transcendence which Lowney defines here as “rising above self-interest for the sake of mission”.

Lowney suggests that in Gandhian terms, Francis is doing brilliantly, following the Mahatma’s dictum: “Be the change you want to see in the world”.

But one man, no matter how inspiring, cannot change the culture of a vast and conservative institution like the Roman Catholic Church. “The new vision and culture change must be institutionalised to be sustainable,” Lowney says. And that means that truly missionary Catholics — clergy, religious and lay — have to be more the norm than the exception. Francis will have succeeded only when he is no longer the exception, says Lowney.

Can the pope succeed? At 77, time is likely to be against him. Lowney makes the sobering point that even John Paul II, who wielded such authority for so long, was unable to stem the decline in Europe. Hence Francis has to make the most of this time and be careful of getting bogged down in things which sap the missionary energy. The reform of the Vatican, important an aim as this is, is a potential “sinkhole” and Lowney approves of the way Francis has enlisted others to help him with this.

Will the Church leadership respond to Francis or to his interpreter Lowney? The pope certainly knows what he’s up against. “Careerism is leprosy.” That little statement suggests he has no illusions.

So will those who in fact went for the priesthood motivated by ambition for preferment rather than pastoral service now suddenly have a change of heart?

Will those who are in it for the power-dressing and a nice car now change their ways in response to Francis’ Franciscan example in dress and mode of transport?

Will dioceses and religious congregations attract more men and women fired with Francis’ vision for a Church of and for the poor?

The laity, in general, seem to be delighted with the man, his manner and the matter of his message.

Will the secular leaders listen? One has a sense that many know that Francis and Lowney are right, but that the sheer momentum of the vast machine in which they work will make it almost impossible for them to change. The crude power of profit is not easily put down.

Business gurus mouth platitudes about how important it is to invest in personnel, their most valuable resource, but in fact the trend is often to skimp on training and apprenticeships, hire from abroad and make staff ever more disposable by placing them on contracts.