Dean of the Cathedral
Applicant Questionnaire
As part of the application process, please respond to the following questions. Your responses will help us to get to know you by providing personal insights into various aspects of your leadership.
Spiritual Leadership
The Dean is the spiritual leader of the Cathedral community, which includes a diverse and engaged congregation and a steady stream of visitors of different Christian denominations and other religious faiths.
With the Heads of the three schools on the Close, the Dean and
Cathedral clergy also provide spiritual leadership for other members of the Close community. The Dean and the Cathedral clergy and staff, along with Bishop Budde and her staff, welcome the clergy and people of the Diocese of Washington to the worship and programmatic life of the Cathedral.
As the spiritual leader of this large and diverse Cathedral community, the Dean sets a personal example of living a life of faith and prayer. Please tell us how you would stay spiritually centered as you carry out the other leadership responsibilities of the Dean, as described below.
The Canterbury Pulpit
The Dean is a prominent voice in the Cathedral’s Canterbury Pulpit, in the Episcopal Church, in the city of Washington and in our nation. The
Cathedral’s history of excellence in preaching is underscored by the
Dean’s skill in engaging the Cathedral’s regular congregation and its visitors in thoughtful and inspiring preaching that is faithful to the
Gospel as it translates the texts of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures to high speed, tech savvy, and often confused world.

Please share with us an experience when you were called upon to address an issue of local, national, international, or theological concern, knowing that your listeners held a variety of different opinions on the matter. As priest, pastor, and respected Church leader, how did you frame your message so that it might best be heard and considered by all?
Strategic Leadership
The Dean will need to establish an operational plan to realize and implement the strategic vision of the Cathedral. The Cathedral Chapter is committed to implementing the strategic plan over time, but as indicated in the Position Profile, the plan is currently an aspirational document. One of the first tasks for the new Dean will be to develop a plan that identifies priorities for a phased implementation of the strategic plan.
After reading the Cathedral’s strategic plan, and drawing on your own background and experience, please describe briefly the aspects of the plan that are most inspirational to you and why.
Management Leadership
The Dean is the chief executive officer charged with leading a large and complex organization. The Cathedral community is composed of more than 75 full-time staff members and many more part-time employees, as well as a large network of passionate and deeply committed volunteers, partners, and other stakeholders. While all are committed to the general mission of the Cathedral, these groups have not always shared the same immediate goals and have sometimes tended to work independently of one another, focusing on their own priorities. In order to realize the goals set out in the strategic plan, it will be important for these groups to become unified around a set of common goals and objectives as they work together to accomplish them.
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Recognizing that a cultural change will be needed in order to unite various constituencies of the Cathedral in pursuit of common goals, please describe a time when you led a community through an intentional process of evolutionary change. How would you approach and structure a process that would enable a cultural shift among the Cathedral’s many employees, including the senior leadership team, clergy, and other members of the staff?
Fundraising Leadership
The Dean plays a unique and essential leadership role in the work of raising funds to support the mission of the Cathedral and the preservation of its magnificent building. While supported by the
Provost and a capable staff of development professionals, the Dean has a major responsibility for engaging donors and embracing a ministry that encourages financial support of the Cathedral’s larger mission. The
Chapter is committed to working closely with the Dean to ensure the financial sustainability of the Cathedral and its mission and to provide adequate financial and human resources needed to support the Dean in this important work.
As described in the Strategic Plan, the Cathedral will need to raise significant capital funds over the next twenty years. Based on your reading of the plan, please describe your vision of the Dean’s involvement in the two or three most important aspects of that work.
What steps would you take to make the campaign a robust and successful long term endeavor for the Cathedral? Please illustrate with examples from your present or past experience.
Personal and Vocational Leadership
The Dean must bring a set of personal and vocational skills that enliven his or her ministry. The Dean must be a person of high energy, a team builder, and an enthusiastic advocate for the Cathedral’s mission. The
Dean’s role requires presence and skill in addressing large groups of people, but also the same intentional focus and energy when dealing with individuals or small groups.
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Please tell us about your personal experience of being called to ordained leadership in the Episcopal Church. Which of your personal gifts and experiences do you think would be most helpful to you in the role of Dean of the Washington Cathedral? How do you see the role of Dean in the larger context of your ministry in the Church?
What—or who—helps you to maintain your energy, your enthusiasm, your active engagement in your work, and your joy in your ministry? What sustains you in those moments of challenge, discouragement, or controversy that inevitably come into the life of any successful priest or community leader?
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