Dear friends,
Greetings and peace to you. It is not news to any of us that the global pandemic has beset us with an experience of massive uncertainty. At Le Moyne College, the small gem of a Jesuit university in Syracuse, NY, where I serve as an administrator, we are doing our best to make critical decisions about whether we can open for on-campus classes in the fall, and how we would do so while navigating so many factors beyond our control. Each day, we gather the most current information we have, and respond with the best of our ability- while also unable to anticipate exactly what new developments will come tomorrow. At stake, both cura personalis and cura apostolica, the care of persons and the care for the mission and work.
So we learn our way forward in the mode of discerning and adaptive leadership, making our way through a kind of daily creative improvisation. Does this experience sound familiar? The pressure we experience as leaders now might feel as massive and incomprehensible as the uncertainty itself. Yet, as the Psalm for today’s liturgy proclaims, “Your right hand saves me, O Lord,” (Psalm 138), reminding us that we are not alone. In fact, as our Easter season moves to the celebration of Pentecost, we remember the Advocate sent to live within us and lead us in times such as these.
For our weekly message, I share with you the attached blog post from Bob Rognlien, a Protestant pastor, and Biblical scholar (https://www.bobrognlien.com/blog). I hope that his encouraging message about “Jesus Shaped Leadership for Times of Uncertainty” resonates as much with you as it did with me.
Fr. Giacomo Costa SJ did studies in philosophy and theology, and he also obtained a master's degree in Political and Moral Sociology at the EHESS in Paris.
He is the responsible for Formation at the Society of Jesus.
Prof. Rafael Luciani received his licentiate and doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and a degree in educational sciences with a philosophical orientation from the Universidad Católica "Andrés Bello" in Caracas (Venezuela). He also studied philosophy at the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome and did post-doctoral work at the Julius Maximilians Universität in Würzburg (Germany).
Nathalie Becquart serves as Undersecretary of the Secretariat of the Synod of the Bishops since March 2021.
Robert J. Bies (Ph.D., Stanford University) is Professor of Management and Founder of the Executive Master’s in Leadership Program at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. In addition, Dr. Bies is a co-author of the book, Getting Even: The Truth About Workplace Revenge—And How to Stop It.
Professor Bies’s current research focuses on leadership, the delivery of bad news, organizational justice, and revenge and forgiveness in the workplace.