ACUCA FORUM

The Vision of Christian Leaders for the 21st Century

Fr. Miguel Garaizabal S.J.

This talk is about Spirituality. It is also about Leadership. The term “spirituality” is a bit diffuse. It might be applied to a variety of strategies, techniques or philosophies. I define spirituality as the way women and men journey towards God. It is like a pilgrimage towards God’s Kingdom in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. You can speak of many spiritualities: middle ages spirituality, monastic spirituality, and even a spirituality for the year 2000, but they ale all variants of the way Jesus thought, felt and acted. Christian spirituality is based on Jesus Christ.

What is a leader? What kind of leadership are we talking about? Leadership is a subject that has been studied very thoroughly, and nevertheless there is no consensus on how it happens, or what makes a leader. There are many different theories. There is actually a book that reviews current leadership research where the reference list of books is two hundred pages long!. Borrowing from Howard Gardner, leadership is an empowerment for influencing people toward ways of thinking, ways of acting and way of renewing a tradition or belief. We can draw strategies for leadership from Christ’s own example. Jesus taught people how to think and analyze, he challenged them to confront evil, he empowered them to become their best, he helped them to overcome our natural mistrust of one another and create a community based on mutaul respect and genuine love.

What are the challenges that are facing us in the 21st century? Let me summarize three main challenges:

1. GLOBALIZATION. In a speech delivered by Mr. Kofi A. Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, at the UN Head-quarters, New York, on July 26, 2000, he mentioned Globalization as a major challenge. We are moving towards a world economy and a global market, globalization is happening whether we like or not. Can we go beyond fast food, fast computers and fast music, and take into account social needs so that all the world’s people share from its benefits?.

2. ECOLOGY. Can the environment withstand the pressure on resources from an ever growing population and an even hungrier industry? Can we reverse the global warming and climatic changes? Can we stop the depletion of natural resources?

3. HUMAN RIGHTS, GENDER EQUALITY, ETHNIC IDENTITY. vThis past century has witnessed an increased awareness of fundamental rights, of which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, is only a stepping stone. Since then countless United Nations resolutions have spelled out many of these basic rights and duties to address many different situations. The issue of gender equality is something that we have become more aware of in the last twenty years or so due to the work of many people, mainly women.

The bottom lines of these challenges is that leaders, mainly business leaders, need to pay more attention to people, and less to profits. Yet looking beyond profits is a relatively modern idea. Companies begin to realize the importance of putting the welfare of their own employees and their customers first. It even makes sense from a business point of view, besides being morally more correct. A person-oriented business often achieves better results than one which stresses only financial profit at the expense of human welfare.

What kind of Christian leadership do we need to face these and other challenges of the year 2000?. Where can we draw our inspiration from? Are the old theories about leadership still valid today?

There are many theories about leadership. Some of them could be qualified in the category of THE STRONGMAN LEADERSHIP, they stress the commanding qualities of a chief executive. Many hard-nosed business executives and ruthless dictators belong to this category.

Others focus on the vision and capacity to transmit this vision, and could be categorized under the title of THE VISIONARY HERO LEADERSHIP. Many saints, founders of nations or innovators are included here. Of the two categories, visionary heroes are far more positive and appealing. The problem with these charismatic leaders, is that when they disappear, their followers get lost, and their movement tends to collapse.

A third model would follow THE NURTURING MOTHER, a style of leadership, that stresses cooperation, human relations and life-enhancing attitudes, typical feminine qualities.

To be continued in the next issue.