BY: JOHN O. MUDD, JD, JSD
Dr. Mudd is senior vice president, Providence Services, Spokane, WA, and
chair of the Board of Trustees of Ascension Health, St. Louis. His article originally
appeared in the July 18, 2005, issue of America Magazine.
Already Proficient as Business People, Ministry Executives Must Learn to
"Speak Mission," Too
The face of leadership in Catholic organizations has changed dramatically in
less than a generation. Catholic health care offers a clear illustration. Forty
years ago most of the presidents of Catholic hospitals in the United States
were Catholic women religious. Today those hospitals are nearly all led by lay
people, mostly men, a large number of whom are not Catholic. Catholic colleges
and universities also have a growing number of lay presidents. While the shift
to lay leadership in Catholic higher education is not yet as complete as it
is in Catholic hospitals, the direction is the same and the implications just
as profound.
Some lament the changing face of leadership as symptomatic of a waning Catholic
identity and predict that Catholic institutions will not survive as Catholic
without the active presence and leadership of the religious congregations that
founded them. If that prediction proves accurate, then Catholic hospitals in
the United States may even now be on their way out the door of the church, with
Catholic colleges and universities only a few steps behind.
Despite dramatic changes and dire predictions, those of us who serve in these
ministries are not prepared to concede defeat in our efforts, which aim not
just to maintain them as Catholic, but to strengthen them in the Catholic tradition.
To lose the voice, influence and care of Catholic hospitals and universities
in our culture would be tragic. To reinforce these institutions as both Catholic
and excellent is the challenge facing their sponsoring congregations and those
in leadership positions. To meet this test of lay leadership, we must confront
the current reality with a sense of urgency. While we must act in hope and faith,
we cannot delay. Time is not on our side.
The Sisters' Heritage
Twenty years ago, when many congregations of religious women could see they
would no longer have the internal expertise to run the complex organizations
that modern hospitals had become, they did not hesitate to hire lay people as
leaders to replace retiring sisters. Many congregations took the next step of
organizing their hospitals into systems, again led by lay people. Today these
congregations continue to work through the implications of sponsoring complex
ministries in which they no longer direct day-to-day operations. A common response
to this changed reality has been for sisters to retain seats on the boards of
the ministries and to place a sister in a senior position with a title like
Vice President for Mission Integration. Yet today the face of those in the mission
position is also changing.
Watching this transition in the Catholic health care systems first-hand leads
me to make two observations. First, the sisters with whom I have worked most
closely have done a superb job of shifting their ministries to lay leadership.
The changeover has been nearly seamless and complete. From an operational and
financial standpoint, we barely noticed it had happened. To the outside world,
the sisters made the difficult transition appear effortless, particularly in
comparison with the struggles of family businesses turning over operational
control to others outside the family.
We have done well in handling the transition of our organizations as businesses;
but the picture is quite different, when one looks at nonbusiness areas like
the expression of mission, spirit, and Catholic identity. We are far from sure
how successful we will be in passing on the heart and soul of these organizations
as specifically Catholic ministries. Sponsoring congregations and lay leaders
must ask ourselves whether we can be confident that a generation from now our
Catholic ministries will still know where they came from and why they exist.
Succeeding in mission and identity remains a challenge in Catholic health care
as the sisters, who previously embodied Catholic identity by their very presence,
become less and less visible. Today it is common that barely a handful of sisters
work in ministries with several thousand employees. Despite their many gifts,
we cannot expect these women to maintain our institutions as Catholic.
Lay Mission Leaders?
Lay leaders are increasingly aware that we cannot think of ourselves solely
as leading businesses, while leaving to sisters and priests the mission dimensions
of our work. We too must become effective mission leaders. That requires thinking
of ourselves differently and preparing for a role that may not have been part
of the job description when we signed up. This change is required, not just
because there are fewer priests and sisters, but fundamentally because, as the
Second Vatican Council made clear, laypersons have both the right and the responsibility
to continue the healing and teaching ministry of Jesus. With this new era in
Catholic health care and higher education comes a new set of responsibilities
for lay leaders.
In the past many leaders in Catholic ministries suffered from a kind of organizational
schizophrenia fostered by thinking of leadership as divided between two kinds
of people. There are the business types, trained in a variety of "hard"
operational sciences, with the responsibility to see that the organization is
financially sound and delivers excellent service. Then there are the mission
directors, chaplains and the like, trained in "soft" sciences like
theology and spirituality, responsible for mission, ministry, and Catholic identity.
We business types certainly value the mission. Indeed, the mission focus may
have been what brought us to our work and what continues to sustain us. But
we do not see the work of mission as specifically ours. We may commonly, if
unconsciously, consider that dimension as the responsibility of others.
This organizational schizophrenia is understandable, at least historically,
and may even be comfortable for both groups of leaders. Each group respects
the other, and both may even sit at the same table when important decisions
are made.
Yet in the long run it is hard to imagine that a hospital, university, or other
ministry will thrive or even survive as Catholic with leadership divided in
this way, no matter how skilled or well-intentioned the players. Sooner or later,
one way of looking at the world, one language, one pattern of making decisions,
is likely to become dominant in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. As I know from
my own behavior, for example, and that of my trustee colleagues in boardrooms
of Catholic health care ministries, those of us who have lived most of our lives
in the world of secular business are comfortable talking about financial and
operational performance. We gravitate to those issues, and they tend to occupy
our focus. But ask us to assess the mission effectiveness of our ministries
or the quality of our spiritual care—arguably the distinguishing characteristics
of these Catholic institutions—and many of us become tongue-tied.
Becoming "Mission-Literate"
The situation is reminiscent of an experience I had in legal education. When
I would challenge law students to go below the surface of the law to the values
and ethical principles that lay beneath, only a few could engage in that conversation.
This was not because they lacked values or were unethical. Quite the contrary.
They were talented, ethical people. Yet few had been educated in the language
of values or ethics. They simply did not know how to speak about that dimension
of their lives. Despite their fine education in academic disciplines and their
own ethical way of living, many were, in an important sense, "ethically
illiterate." They did not know how to speak about ethics.
Without being too harsh, the phrase "mission-illiterate" may describe
many of us who have leadership roles in Catholic organizations. We fully subscribe
to the Catholic mission as we understand it. We may even have grown up in the
Catholic tradition, and those of us from traditions other than Catholic may
also feel passion about the mission. Yet we may not be comfortable articulating
the mission. We may speak with conviction about our hospital's clinical
quality, our university's academic excellence, our new building project
or our bond rating; yet we become tentative when it comes to speaking about
our mission, our values, and our identity as Catholic ministries. To some extent,
the very presence of sisters and priests who are our mission leaders has let
us off the hook. With someone else attending to that dimension of our work,
we have not been forced to become fluent in the language of mission.
We may think our discomfort does not show. But it does. The very selection
and ordering of the topics we speak about sends a message. If we routinely begin
organizational conversations with statements about finances, for example, we
are implicitly making a statement about the relative priority of mission. If
we talk about operational issues and challenges with clarity and conviction,
but are timid when expressing our mission and values, it shows.
Despite this challenge, I remain confident that lay leaders in Catholic ministries
can learn this second language of mission and even grow to be eloquent in it.
This will require expanding our appreciation for the mission and our commitment
to it and developing a facility in speaking about the mission with conviction,
even passion. But how can we begin to achieve this goal?
Changing Our Thinking
The first step is to change our thinking. As lay leaders, we can no longer
rely on sisters or priests to be our translators. Speaking about mission and
values with clarity and conviction is as essential a part of our leadership
responsibilities as speaking about operations and finance. The entire work must
be viewed through the lens of mission, not just some aspects of it, like pastoral
care in hospitals or campus ministry in universities. Strategic planning, communications,
contracting, and human resource systems are also essential dimensions of how
we carry out our mission. They need to be seen and spoken of in that light.
Beyond merely becoming confident when speaking about mission, lay leaders are
also challenged to develop a unified language that brings together the mission
and operational aspects of our work. A Catholic ministry should be a unified
one—not a business with a mission overlay or a mission with operational
requirements. It is a single reality with multiple facets. Can we develop a
way of speaking that reinforces that integration rather than a (false) separation?
As lay leaders become more comfortable in referring to our "ministries"
rather than "organizations" or "entities," might we also
discover more meaningful terms for our "corporate offices," "jobs,"
"staff," "executives" and "systems"?
As lay leaders with an expanded role, many of us will require additional study
to become comfortable with this new language. In the last few years several
programs have been developed to help leaders in Catholic health care deepen
their understanding and grow in their fluency in the language of mission. Some
programs extend for days, others as long as three years. They hold out promise,
not only for those who enroll in them but also for the broader community of
Catholic leaders, who will benefit from the emerging teaching methods and materials
they are generating. Over the long term, the concepts and language of mission
will need to be taught to leaders at all levels in the ministries, including
those who serve on boards of trustees.
As with any new language, the more one understands the language, the more one
grows to appreciate the history, culture and values from which the language
emerges. By gaining fluency in the language of mission and ministry, lay leaders
will also grow in appreciation of the spirit and commitment that brought our
ministries to life. The more lay leaders understand that story and can tell
it with confidence and enthusiasm, the more the story is reborn in our own lives
and in our ministries. Eventually we become transformed into that story. As
lay leaders of Catholic ministries in the 21st century, this may be our greatest
challenge—and our greatest opportunity.
Copyright 2005, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission
of America Press.
Copyright © 2005 by the Catholic Health Association of the United States
For reprint permission, contact Betty Crosby or call (314) 253-3477.