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Don Bosco: a Living Harmony of Leadership and Management Qualities

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Don Bosco: a Living Harmony of Leadership and Management Qualities January – June 2016 Volume 17, Number 1 Revised Edition © 2016 – Salesian Society (SUO) ISSN 2333–4061 (print) ISSN 2333–4118 (online) Subscription information and digital versions available online at: SalesianJournal.org A semiannual journal founded in 1990 and published by the a work of the Society of Saint Francis de Sales USA - West Editor in Cheif Emmanuel Camilleri, SDB Editorial Board Arthur J. Lenti, SDB Francis J. Moloney, SDB John Roche, SDB Joseph Boenzi, SDB Michael Mendl, SDB Thomas Juarez, SDB Thomas Prendiville, SDB Design & Layout Christopher Silva Don Bosco: A Living Harmony of Leadership and Management Qualities by Michal Vojtáš, SDB translated by Thomas Juarez, SDB This study of Don Bosco in a perspective of organizational virtues is intended to be in a circular hermeneutic relation with the present period of transformation in which the Salesians of Don Bosco find themselves. From the 1970’s to the present day, the organizational methodology of the Salesians has been substantially influenced by the Management by Objectives model (MBO), which had been inspiring the curriculum design theories of the sixties. Among the education theorists who have had the greatest impact on the formulation of the Salesian Educative and Pastoral Project, we find Ralph Tyler, Leslie Briggs, Robert Gagné, Robert Mager, Hilda Taba and, above all, Lawrence Stenhouse, who influenced Juan Edmundo Vecchi the most.1 It is to the latter, who was the Counsellor for Youth Ministry in the Congregation from 1978 to 1990 that we owe the main ideas leading to educative-pastoral planning. The limits of planning by objectives and how to go beyond Planning and Managing By Objectives became universally known thanks to Peter Drucker’s book The Practice of Management,2 and which he further developed in his later books.3 The MBO insisted on involving managers in the decision-making process of establishing objectives as a team, thus bypassing the traditional tasks usually entrusted to the hierarchy.4 Besides being an instrument of management suitable for many profit and non-profit 1. See author’s deeper analysis in Michal Vojtáš, Progettare e discernere. Progettazione educativo-pastorale salesiana tra storia, teorie e proposte innovative (Rome: LAS, 2015). 2. See Peter F. Drucker, The Practice of Management (New York: Harper & Row, 1954). 3. See Peter F. Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (New York: Truman Talley Books, 1986). 4. See Morgan Witzel, A History of Management Thought (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), 177-197. 44 Michal Vojtáš, SDB Journal of Salesian Studies organizations, MBO, according to Drucker, is also a philosophy of action that transforms real needs into action goals - objectives. The human being is seen as a free being who chooses to achieve a series of goals not imposed by someone else, but rather those reflecting real needs. The eventual attainment of the objective is obtained above all through determined effort and self- control.5 Other management studies have further developed some peculiar aspects of the MBO theory. As an example, we can mention the pioneer publications of Edwin A. Locke, that had an influence on management in the 70’s. His theory prefers a psychological perspective on planning and sees motivation and effectiveness as directly related to objectives that have to be specific and urgent.6 Later Locke and Latham elaborated a more sophisticated aspect of planning in the goal setting theory.7 Other lines of thought from the 80’s bring further development to the MBO introducing SMART objectives which have five characteristics:specific, measurable; assignable; realistic; time- related.8 Halfway through the 80’s, different management theorists begin to detect the social, political and economic changes, and start to design the passage from the management paradigm of the industrial society to the shared leadership paradigm related to the interconnectedness of the information society. The transition is well noticeable in the extensive documentation in the 1990 edition of Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership.9 It must be noted that this paradigmatic shift is in no way meant to indicate that leadership is superior to management; rather it speaks to their differences and to how they are a complementary dual concept. This complimentarity is 5. See Drucker, Management, 303-304. 6. See Edwin A. Locke, “Toward a theory of task motivation and incentives,” in Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 3 (1968): 157-189. 7. See Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham, Goal setting: A motivational technique that works (Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall, 1984); Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham, “Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation. A 35- year odyssey,” in American Psychologist 57, no. 9 (2002): 705-717. 8. See George T. Doran, “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives,” in Management Review 70, no. 11 (1981): 35-36 and Ken Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi and Drea Zigarmi, Leadership and the one minute manager: Increasing effectiveness through situational leadership (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1985). 9. See Bernard M. Bass, Bass and Stogdill’s, Handbook of Leadership. Theory, Research and Managerial Applications (New York: Free Press, 1990). Don Bosco: A Living Harmony of Leadership and Management Qualities 45 the understanding of John P. Kotter and Warren Bennis, two of the foremost scholars in the area of management and leadership during those years.10 LEADERSHIP MANAGEMENT people oriented task oriented spontaneity and serendipity structure and formality empowerment control principles and purposes techniques and practices transformation transaction discernment measurement goals – do right things methods – do things right goals – direction and effectiveness methods – speed and efficiency act upon the systems operate within the systems The above outline presents a series of binomials11 inspired by the synthesis of Stephen R. Covey, an influential author of the 90’s.12 They illustrate several interdependent aspects between leadership and management. It seems we have passed from a paradigm which sees “leadership as management” to one which understands “leadership as interdependent with management.” Leadership and management are seen as two poles in the world of an organization, because there exists an equilibrium between concern for persons and concern for the systems and tasks. Even though the distinction between leadership and management as interdependent aspects can run the risk of becoming 10. See John P. Kotter, A Force for Change: How Leadership Differs from Management (New York: Free Press, 1990); Warren Bennis, An Invented Life. Reflections on Leadership and Change (Reading MA: Addison-Wesley, 1993); Warren Bennis and Joan Goldsmith, Learning to Lead. A workbook on Becoming a Leader (Reading MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997), 9-10. 11. In this study a binomial is to be intended as an interrelated synergic contrast of two terms which express two poles of approach to a question. 12. See Stephen R. Covey, The 8th Habit. From Effectiveness to Greatness (New York: Free Press, 2004), 364. 46 Michal Vojtáš, SDB Journal of Salesian Studies a mere cliché, presuming to resolve all organizational problems, it remains a valid theory that can exert influence in the area of organizational studies.13 This paradigm shift was not explicitly perceived in the Salesian Educative- Pastoral Project (SEPP) methodology which still refers to the 80’s management by objectives logic implemented by Vecchi. The possible implementation of this paradigm shift could lead to a balance between the importance of planning (management reasoning) together with the importance of government and motivation (leadership reasoning). There must be an equilibrium between the need for clear and shared objectives (management) and working side by side with the others with a real integration of their insights (leadership). Without leadership, accompaniment and communal discernment one would most likely arrive at insignificant objectives. The practice and organizational theories of the past thirty years confirm the inadequacy of the organizational model which aims at realizing goals merely through self-control. There is clear need of deep spiritual motivation along with the dynamics of communal corresponsibility. Consecrated life and managerial-organizational research Leadership and management are not unknowns in the world of consecrated life. There are many studies which deal with this topic and the points of view vary. We will recall just some authors who understand that the binomial leadership – management as seen in religious orders has much to say to the secular world. In his book Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old- Company That Changed the World,14 Chris Lowney, a former Jesuit, and now a consultant and manager, dwells at length particularly on the experience of the first generations of the Company of Jesus. He selects four fundamental principles of leadership implicit in the Jesuit “way of proceeding.” The author 13. See. John P. Kotter, Accelerate. Building Strategic Agility for a Faster Moving World (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2014) and Gareth Edwards et al., “Exploring power assumption in the leadership and management debate,” Leadership & Organization Development Journal 36, no. 3 (2015): 328-343. 14. See Chris Lowney, Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old-Company That Changed the World (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2005). Editor’s note: The author is using the Italian translation of the original publication – Chris Lowney, Leader per vocazione. I principi della leadership secondo i gesuiti (Milano: Il Sole 24 Ore, 2005). Don Bosco: A Living Harmony of Leadership and Management Qualities 47 proposes this model as a universally acceptable method, not restricted to the Company of Jesus. The Jesuit “heroic leadership” is founded on four pillars: self-awareness: of one’s strengths, weaknesses, values and vision of the future, nurturing the habit of self-examination and of deepening their knowledge through the Spiritual Exercises;15 the spirit of initiative: which embraces the world ever in change and initiating changes.
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