2015 marks 40 years of publication of Independence, the biannual journal of the
Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia. To celebrate, AHISA presents
for its members and friends a special series of interviews and essays that provide
insights into independent schooling and educational leadership.
AUGUST 2015: PROFESSOR PATRICK DUIGNAN
EMERITUS PROFESSOR PATRICK DUIGNAN is Director of Leading to Inspire. From 1995 to 2008
he served at ACU National as Foundation Chair in Educational Leadership and Director of the
Flagship for Creative & Authentic Leadership. He has authored several highly regarded books
on leadership, including Educational leadership: Together creating ethical learning
environments (2012). Most recently, his paper ‘Authenticity in educational leadership: History,
ideal, reality’, first published in the Journal of Educational Administration in 2014, was
awarded Emerald Publishing International Paper of the Year, 2015. Professor Duignan was also
awarded the Australian Council for Educational Leaders Outstanding Service Award in 2009
and the Hedley Beare Award for Educational Writing in 2008.
AHISA invited Professor Duignan to respond to questions on leadership and education framed
by Fr Chris Gleeson. Fr Chris is the Provincial Delegate for Education and Mission Formation for
the Australian Jesuits and Secretary of Secondary Education for Jesuit Conference Asia Pacific
(JCAP). He was Headmaster of Xavier College, Victoria from 1981 to 1991 and Headmaster of St
Ignatius’ College, NSW from 1993 to 2000 and its Rector in 2001-02. He was AHISA National
Chair in 1999-2001.
Leaders with integrity, dignity and authenticity in
the pressure-filled world of schools: Lessons from
Pope Francis
A RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS FRAMED BY FR CHRIS GLEESON SJ
RECENTLY, I was asked by Fr Chris Gleeson to respond to the following question: ‘What insights can
educational leaders gain from the current Pope’s teaching on education and leadership?’ To assist
me in my task, he sourced three important commentaries on the nature, quality and influence of the
leadership of Pope Francis, namely: ‘The 15 diseases of leadership according to Pope Francis’ by
Gary Hamel in the April 2015 issue of Harvard Business Review (HBR); ‘The character of Catholic
schools’, a paper given by Fr Chris at a conference for Catholic schools in Singapore in March 2015;
and an article, ‘Pope Francis on education’, an excerpt from The Gonzagan, June 2013, the weekly
newsletter of St Aloysius College, Milsons Point, NSW. As a bonus, I discovered that the August 2015
edition of National Geographic has devoted its front cover to Pope Francis and it includes a major
feature article by Robert Draper titled, ‘Will the Pope change the Vatican? Or will the Vatican
change the Pope?’
In this brief paper on lessons we can learn from the leadership of Pope Francis, I have drawn
selectively from these sources while also generating some leadership implications for educational
leaders using my own research and writings on leadership authenticity.1
Leadership wisdom from Pope Francis
Fr Chris Gleeson (March 2015) reported that, in late November 2013, Pope Francis had a three-hour
conversation with the Union of Superiors General of religious men who questioned him especially
about the identity and the mission of religious orders. The Pope’s reply, I suggest, hits at the very
heart of the leadership challenges and dilemmas of many organisational leaders today:
I am convinced of one thing: the great changes in history were realised when
reality was seen not from the centre but rather from the periphery. …This is
really very important to me: the need to become acquainted with reality by
experience, to spend time walking on the periphery in order really to become
acquainted with the reality and life-experiences of people.
Pope Francis then goes on to argue that if leaders don’t get out and about amongst their communities
they ‘run the risk of being abstract ideologists or fundamentalists, which is not healthy’. He gives us the
example of Jesus, who ‘went toward all the peripheries. Jesus went to all, really all. I would not really
feel uncomfortable going to the periphery: you should not feel uncomfortable in reaching out to
anyone’.
In the National Geographic article by Robert Draper, he paints a vivid picture, using photographs, of a
Pope who feels very comfortable being with and mingling as an equal with ‘his people’. He describes
how at an evangelical meeting of 7,000 people in Buenos Aires before he became Pope, it was evident
that ‘like a chrysalis stirring, something astounding is already present in the man’. He describes this
special revelation about him, which has now become his hallmark as Pope:
From the stage, a pastor calls out for the city’s archbishop [now Pope
Francis] to come up and say a few words. The audience acts with surprise,
because the man striding to the front had been sitting in the back all the
time, for hours, like no one of any importance. Though a cardinal, he is not
wearing the traditional pectoral cross around his neck, just a black clerical
shirt and a blazer, looking like the simple priest he was decades ago.
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INDEPENDENCE 2015 SPECIAL EDITION: PROFESSOR PATRICK DUIGNAN
His demeanour on this occasion was one of modesty, humility, dignity and authenticity and this
continues to be his modus operandi as Pope.
Fr Chris reports in his paper that Pope Benedict XVI had presented a similar challenge to the Jesuits at
their General Congregation in 2008, when he encouraged them to travel to the ‘geographical and
spiritual places where others do not reach or find it difficult to reach’. If you don’t reach out to these
people and places, according to the Jesuit General, Father Alonso Nicolas, you end up with leaders who
are out of touch with reality within their communities and this leads to ‘the globalisation of
superficiality’ and the condition of ‘living on the surface, living alongside the world rather than in it’ (Fr
Chris Gleeson, March 2015).
Leaders of all organisations should take note and remember that they are most influential when they
walk the talk and actively engage with their colleagues and constituents for the greater good of their
organisations and communities. Pope Francis is leading by example and sending the message to other
leaders not to make a fortress of their position and role. He has clearly demonstrated through his
actions that the active presence of a leader with his people is not just a requirement but also a wisdom
way of knowing and working to influence others.
Leaders who engage with the periphery make themselves more vulnerable in the traditional sense of
leadership (that is, hierarchical and bureaucratic control) – but they open themselves to the wisdom of
the ‘marketplace’ and are then better able to gauge the pulse of their organisations. According to
Draper in his National Geographic article, Pope Francis is a man who despises walls and once said to a
friend as they strolled past the Casa Rosada, where Argentina’s President lives: ‘How can they know
what the common people want when they build a fence around themselves?’ It is as if Pope Francis is
saying, ‘don’t fence me in’.
Key leadership challenges identified by Pope Francis
Draper (2015) in his HBR article states that Pope Francis has made no secret of his intention to ‘radically
reform the administrative structures of the Catholic Church, which he regards as insular, imperious, and
bureaucratic. He understands that in a hyper-kinetic world, inward-looking and self-obsessed leaders
are a liability.’ Insular structures, he says, can leave leaders susceptible to an array of ‘debilitating
maladies, including arrogance, intolerance, myopia, and pettiness’.
Pope Francis suggests that when those maladies or diseases prevail, the organisation itself is
debilitated. For a healthy church, he advises the need for ‘healthy’ leaders who ‘should be held to a high
standard, since their scope of influence makes their ailments particularly infectious’.
Pope Francis has identified 15 debilitating leadership diseases (in Draper, 2015) but in this brief paper I
will mention five that would seem to have significant implications for all leaders, including educational
leaders.
1. The disease of thinking we are immortal, immune, or downright indispensable. Personally, I
have encountered a number of leaders on my professional journey with chronic symptoms
of this disease. They seem to think that they are the centre of their own universe with all
of the rest of us satellites depending on their magnetic force. They would do well to
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INDEPENDENCE 2015 SPECIAL EDITION: PROFESSOR PATRICK DUIGNAN
acquaint themselves with the poem ‘Second Coming’ by WB Yeats, in which he warns that,
‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold’.
2. The disease of excessive planning and of functionalism. When leaders plan everything
down to the last detail and believe that with perfect planning things will fall into place,
they become accountants or just office managers. They behave as ‘lone rangers’ who
attempt to do everything themselves (that is, micro manage) and seem to avoid genuine
engagement and collaboration, thereby creating the conditions for their own downfall and
that of their organisation.
3. The disease of rivalry and vainglory. When their appearances, perks (such as bonuses),
titles, positions and roles become the primary object for leaders they tend to forget that
their fundamental duty and purpose as leaders is to engage with and positively influence
all those whose lives they touch. Eckhart Tolle in his insightful work, A new earth:
Awakening to your life’s purpose (2005), concluded that slavish adherence to preestablished functions and roles ‘causes human interactions to become inauthentic,
dehumanising, alienating’ and, as a consequence, ‘authentic human interactions become
impossible when you lose yourself in a role’ (p. 90). To reinforce his point he goes on to say
that when roles become paramount in relationships, ‘instead of human beings, conceptual
mental images are interacting with each other. The more identified people are with their
respective roles, the more inauthentic the relationships become’. It seems to me that Pope
Francis is well aware of such relationship traps and studiously avoids them.
4. The disease of poor coordination. Once leaders lose a sense of community among
themselves, the body loses its harmonious functioning and its equilibrium; it then becomes
an orchestra that produces noise but its members do not work together and they lose the
spirit of camaraderie, teamwork and harmony. I assume we have all worked at some time
in our professional lives in organisations that are discordant and suffer the debilitating
effects of internal fighting, ‘back biting’, and the deliberate sabotage of seemingly agreed
goals and purposes. I am reminded here of Mark 3:25 in which Jesus states: ‘If a kingdom is
divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that
house will not be able to stand’.
5. The disease of indifference to others. Pope Francis claims that a key symptom of this
disease is where each leader thinks only of himself or herself and loses the sincerity and
warmth of genuine human relationships. This can happen in many ways:
When the most knowledgeable person does not put that knowledge at
the service of less knowledgeable colleagues, when you learn something
and then keep it to yourself rather than sharing it in a helpful way with
others; when out of jealousy or deceit you take joy in seeing others fall
instead of helping them up and encouraging them.
On this last point, Pope Francis, when speaking to students and teachers in Rome in June 2013, stated
that ‘the principal element of education is to learn to be generous’ (The Gonzagan, 14 June 2013).
Magnanimity, he suggested, enables us ‘to have a big heart, to have a great spirit, and to have great
ideals’. Generosity is truly demonstrated ‘in doing well the simple things – the daily chores and
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responsibilities, and the ordinary encounters with people.’ Above all else, it means ‘doing the small
things every day with a big heart open to God and to others’. School, he explained, ‘not only expands
your intellectual dimension, but also the human heart.’ Educational leaders in systems and schools
would do well to take the Pope’s advice to heart.
We need authentic educational leaders in our schools!
Educational leaders in our contemporary world operate in pressure-filled environments, replete with
difficult dilemmas and challenges, which can cause them to catch many of the diseases highlighted by
Pope Francis. The antidote to these diseases is for educational leaders to interpret and actualise their
ethical, moral and authentic ideals within the reality of their complex and pressure-filled contexts. They
must achieve their goals through webs of relationships, characterised by risks, constraints, pressures
and human frailty.
Starratt (2004) pointed out that authenticity ‘is always a relative achievement, always a risk, always in
dialogue with the other, always amplifying or diminishing in the face of daily circumstances’ (p. 75). In
other words, in complex organisations, there are always subtle and not-so-subtle pressures towards
inauthenticity. Educational leaders need to be aware of these pitfalls and constantly keep their values
and moral purpose uppermost as guides for their actions.
Critics of authentic leadership often claim that it is a ‘soft’ approach to leadership and that it is the
hard-nosed, aggressive, ruthlessly ambitious extroverts, win-at-all cost leaders who deliver the better
outcomes. This appears not to be the case. There is substantial research evidence from a variety of
organisations and industries indicating that values-inspired, virtuous organisations and their authentic
leaders perform better than their counterparts who seek to win or achieve at all costs (Duignan 2014 &
2015).
I have argued the need for authentically professional leadership in our schools for a number of years
(since about 1992!). This is leadership infused with integrity, moral purpose and ethics. Like Principals,
teachers are highly influential leaders but they cannot achieve their goals on their own; they must
embrace a deep ethical and professional commitment to work collegially for the common good. It is
only when this focus becomes an ethical and moral imperative that the teaching and learning landscape
in our schools is likely to be transformed.
What is needed is ‘a renewed sense of vocation for educators and a collective and passionate
commitment to creating learning environments and school cultures that will help transform the lives of
learners as well as their learning’ (Duignan 2012, p. 135). Authentic leaders can help create the type of
organisational cultures that value professional collaboration and collective responsibility for high quality
teaching, learning, and learning outcomes for students.
Authentic educational leaders, I believe, need to continually respond to Starratt’s (2004) challenge of
‘transforming students each day into something special and something that enables their human spirit
to soar’. Their actions must be so inspiring and uplifting that their schools become flourishing places for
students, parents, teachers and all key stakeholders.
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INDEPENDENCE 2015 SPECIAL EDITION: PROFESSOR PATRICK DUIGNAN
Seligman (2011) suggests that ‘happiness, flow, meaning, love, gratitude, accomplishment, growth,
better relationships . . . constitute human flourishing. Learning that you can have more of these things is
life changing. Glimpsing the vision of a flourishing human future is life changing’ (p. 2).
Authentic leaders can help create flourishing schools that are life changing because when the golden
seeds of learning are planted by authentic leaders and teachers in the fertile soils of their students’
minds and imaginations, these students grow and blossom into beautiful collections of flowering
personhood. While each flower has its own unique grace and beauty, it is in the bouquet (the collective)
that we will see the dazzling reflections, the essence, of our authentic professional commitment and
collective efforts. 
NOTE
1
For a summary of Professor Duignan’s research and writings on leadership authenticity, see
Duignan PA (2015) Authenticity in educational leadership: history, ideal, reality, published in Leading
& Managing (Journal of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders), 21(1).
REFERENCES
Duignan PA (2012) Educational leadership: Together creating ethical learning environments.
Cambridge , UK: Cambridge University Press.
Duignan PA (2014) Authenticity in educational leadership: History, ideal, reality. Journal of
Educational Administration, 52(2):152-172. Reprinted (2015) with permission in Leading &
Managing, 21(1). [NOTE: This paper received the Emerald Publishing International Paper of the
Year, 2015, Award, presented to Professor Duignan at the American Educational Research
Annual Conference in Chicago, May 2015.]
Seligman MEP (2011) Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being.
New York, USA: Simon & Schuster.
Starratt RJ (2004) Ethical leadership. San Francisco, USA: Jossey-Bass.
Tolle E (2005) A new earth: Awakening to your life’s purpose. New York, USA: Penguin.
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