FIC Leadership Workshop: Day Three-6/9/2015.

The day three of the Leadership Workshop began with Eucharistic celebration at 6:30am GMT in St. Louis chapel.   This strengthened the participants to begin the day’s session at 8:00am on what was termed “overnight thought” by the facilitator, Rev. Fr. Dominic Apee, M. Afr. The participants took turns to share their dreams and thoughts over the night to the lager group.

What followed soon was the topic “Organization as a Living System.” In a systematic power point presentation, the facilitator explained that there would be a great transformation of a greater impact if we as leaders in our leadership consciously consider our organization as a living organism in our leadership role.  Fr. Dominic further added that system in every organization should be able to carry out transformation; inability of the system to do this would mean that there is something wrong.  

Furthermore, he said every organisation as a system consists of mission, activities and boundaries. The mission is what unifies the members of the system; activities through the articulation of leadership transform the input of the system to bring outcome or result; the boundaries are skin/membrane that put the activities of the system together. The facilitator made the participants to clearly understand that the output of the system through the transformational process should have its effect on the context in which the system operates and exists.  These could be soft-outcome (non-measurable: self confidence, better capability, etc); hard outcome (measurable one that can be quantified or seen as indicators of change) or long-term impact which often is difficult to assess in the lifetime of a short project.  

After the participants have been made to know that every organization operates as a living system; and as leaders in one way or the other, the facilitator took them through the certain attitudes that a leader should have in order to function effectively.  These attitudes are open mind, open heart and open will. Open mind is the ability to listen intelligently to what one hears or sees. Human mind is like a parachute; it works well when it is open.  The enemy of this attitude is the voice of judgment which stops us from being creative and present to each other.  Open heart is ability to empathize with others, to be in touch with ones emotion or to tune into different contexts.  The enemy of the open heart is the voice of cynicism which blocks us from the open heart and consequently distances us emotionally.  The open will is the capacity or desire to be in touch with ones very best, authentic purpose and self.  The killer of the attitude of the open will is the voice of fear: fear of letting go; fear of losing security or fear of being ridiculed.  In order to function effectively as leaders we need to be conscious of the above mentioned attitudes and their adversaries. 

On the topic “Leadership of Apostolic Religious Congregation in a Global Context”, six types of leadership were enumerated and explained. These are:

a. An Interconnected leadership for a new future 

b. A leadership that makes connections

c. A leadership of curves and spirals

d. A leadership of discontinuity

e. A prophetic leadership; and

f. A leadership that does theology.

The discussion on the above types of leadership took participants to group discussions on their experiences and the immediate connections they can make; their wonderings; concerns and questions. 

Resuming from a café break, members were given chance to share their outcomes from their discussions to the larger group. Next on the topic of the day was Authority and Power in Organization. According to the facilitator, authority and power are both needed in an organization.  He however, distinguished between the two power can and often is exercised without matching authority while authority cannot be exercised adequately without matching power.  He further explicated that when power is dominant, the leader is preoccupied with seeking control of others and avoids being controlled by them. On the other hand when authority is dominant, the leader neither seeks to control others nor avoids being controlled by them. The facilitator placed emphasis on the use of authority that the leadership is effective if a leader uses authority instead of power. To this he enumerated some kinds of power as: personal power, instrumental power, projected power and official power.

Moving ahead was the topic organizational dysfunction. Some of the interesting points elucidated on this topic were: attention deficit; anarchy; contest value; the caste system; despotism; burn out; structural arthritis; etc.  There were various degrees of interest that led the participants into sharing their points of views about the topic presented. The discussion took the participants to the close of the day’s sessions at 5:20pm. 

There was a communal prayer at 6:00pm in the chapel and supper at 6:30pm.  The participants had time to recreate from 9:00pm to 10:00pm to close the day. 

Recorded by Bro. Amatus Taalo and Bro. Francis Sarfo