Servant Leadership II – Training program in Paris

35 leaders from 5 continents and 21 provinces and 2 members of the General Curia of the Congregation of the Mission completed a 3 week workshop designed jointly by the CIF team in Paris and DePaul University’s Vincentian Hay Leadership Project.

Hugh O’Donnel, CM, the Director of the program writes…

CIF, the International Center of (Vincentian) Formation at the Motherhouse in Paris held its second workshop on Servant Leadership 29 June-19 July, 2008.  The first session in 2006 was for local superiors and other local leaders.  This session was for provincial leaders and other confreres with provincial leadership responsibilities.

Thirty-five confreres from 21 provinces on five continents attended: Africa (9); Asia (4); Europe (5); Latin America (12); and North America (5).  Two members of the General Curia came as participants.  Thirteen Visitors also participated, each of whom was asked to invite another confrere with leadership responsibilities in his province to come with him, in order to share the experience in Paris and collaborate back home.  The result was a significant number of younger confreres joined with the Visitors to create an experience of brotherhood and corporate responsibility.  The participants spoke Spanish, French, Portuguese and English and the simultaneous translations were in French, Spanish and English.

The program was designed and carried out by the CIF team (Fathers Hugh O’Donnell, C.M., Juan Julian Diaz Catalan, C.M., José Carlos Fonsatti, C.M.) and De Paul University’s Vincentian Hay Leadership Project (Father Patrick Murphy, C.M. and Sister Patricia Bombard, BVM).  Father Dan Borlik, C.M., the Visitor of the Southern Province USA, joined both the CIF team and De Paul Hay Leadership team to connect the various presentations and guide the overall process.

The first week was on the spiritual foundations of leadership, namely, Jesus as Servant, Vincent as Servant Leader and one’s own call to be a leader in the footsteps of Jesus and Vincent.  Father Jean-Pierre Renouard, C.M. spoke on the Love of God as the heart of Vincent’s leadership. At the end of the week, Father Claude Lautissier, C.M. guided us on a pilgrimage to Chartres. The second week, led by the De Paul team, focused on practices and insights of contemporary leadership, for example, re-framing organizational leadership (Bolman and Deal), Servant Leadership (Robert Greenleaf), Welcoming Diversity and Managing Polarities (Eric Law), and the Five Practices of Effective Leadership (Kouzes and Posner).  The third week was given to integrating the first two weeks and writing one’s own personal leadership plan.

The goal of the program was to help the participants write their own personal leadership plan.  At the end of the three weeks each participant was invited to share with the whole group a significant learning from the session that he was incorporating into his leadership plan.  The presentations were brief, but personal and often profound and moving.  One theme that recurred in the sharing was the importance of finding one’s own voice as a leader.

The evaluations opened up a number of valuable possibilities for the future.  A CD of the experience was distributed to each of the participants.