STEVEN KATZ, LISA AIN DACK & JOHN MALLOY

The Intelligent, Responsive Leader

ANDY HARGREAVES & DENNIS SHIRLEYLeading from the Middle

JILL GOWDIEHold It Like a Mirror

The magazine of Catholic Principals' Council | OntarioWinter 2018 • Volume 22 • Issue 2

SHARED LEADERSHIP

EDITORIAL, ADVERTISING & SALES

Deirdre Kinsella Biss, Editor dkinsellabiss@cpco.on.ca

Carol Anne Jeanson, Copy Editor

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CORPORATE, PROGRAMS & SERVICES

Jennifer Yust, President president@cpco.on.ca | ext. 22

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IN THIS ISSUEWinter 2018 • Volume 22 • Issue 2

We thank all those who contributed to this issue. Please note, however, that the opinions and views expressed are those of the individual contributors and are not necessarily those of CPCO. Similarly, the acceptance of advertising does not imply CPCO endorsement.

Publications Mail Agreement No. 40035635

CPCO assumes no liability or responsibility for any inaccurate, delayed or incomplete information, nor for any actions taken in reliance thereon. The information contained about each individual, event or organization has been provided by such individual, event organizers or organization without verification by us. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission of CPCO. Copyright ©2018 Catholic Principals' Council | Ontario. All rights reserved.

Catholic Principals’ Council | OntarioBox 2325, Suite 3030, 2300 Yonge StreetToronto, Ontario M4P 1E4

1-888-621-9190 toll free • 416-483-1556 phone • 416-483-2554 fax info@cpco.on.ca • blog.cpco.on.ca • www.cpco.on.ca

We would like to acknowledge that the CPCO office is on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation.

Principal Connections is the proud recipient of the following awards:

6

14

10

18

IN THE SPOTLIGHTHold It Like a Mirror | 6

Leading from the Middle | 10

The Intelligent, Responsive Leader | 14

In Celebration of Imperfect Leadership | 18

Searching for Trust | 21

Partnership with Parents | 24

Creating the 2019 CPCO Calendar | 31

Can Principals Be Coaches | 42

Everything You Need to Know about Research

on Distributed Leadership | 50

Cover design by Ania Czupajlo

Hold It Like a Mirror

The Intelligent, Responsive Leader

Leading from the Middle

In Celebration of Imperfect Leadership

IN EVERY ISSUEFrom the President & Executive Director: We Are Not Alone | 4

From the Editor: Moving Forward | 5

Tech Talk: Know Yourself to Know Others | 45

KEEPING YOU INFORMEDSharing Leadership across the Continents | 26

Releasing the Potential of Leadership-in-Community | 28

How Culture Supports Shared Leadership | 34

Empowering a Staff | 36

Building Relationships within a Secondary

Admin Team | 38

Mindsets & Emotional Intelligence | 40

Growing Partnerships through Student Voice | 46

Ref lections on Shared Practice | 48

Empathy & Accompaniment | 52

Empowering the Leader in Me | 54

A Strength-Based Approach to Education | 56

10% Total Recycled Fiber

CPCOofficial

FROM THE PRESIDENTJennifer Yust

FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORJoseph Geiser

We Are Not Alone

So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the Gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had

become very dear to us.

1 Thessalonians 2:8

As Catholic leaders, the Trinity is our model of shared leadership. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are separate, yet working together as one God in loving and supporting us. Each part of the Trinity has a unique role to play, creating a oneness that surpasses the three.

In today’s complex world it is becoming more difficult, if not impossible, for any single individual to possess all of the skills and abilities required to competently lead any organization. Supermen and Wonder Women are scarce on the ground and those that try usually end up burnt out. Accepting that we have limitations can actually be quite liberating for a leader, “I don’t have to know everything!”

As leaders in our Catholic education system, we each have a unique role to play in creating a positive and supportive learning environment, but we are not alone. Everyone involved in education; parents, staff, trustees, senior administration, all have a call to leadership in a shared responsibility in the formation of our children and young people as no one individual, no matter how gifted, can be ‘right’ all the time nor have all the answers.

Every adult involved in the education system has a unique perspective and ideas to share. Parents know their children best, school staff have the curriculum expertise, while school councils, trustees and the Ministry of Education provide community input into how students will function in our broader society. Important decisions about what to do and how to do it are made through the use of an interactive process involving many different

people who inf luence each other. The three components of shared leadership are shared purpose, social support and voice. Out of the three the one that we struggle with the most is social support.

Our role is to bring out the best in others to create a oneness that surpasses all of the component parts. Ideally as leaders, we want to create conditions in which everyone can do their most courageous thinking together. However, this requires relationships built on trust, which cannot be accomplished via email or social media nor at midnight on our devices. This also means spending time together, getting to know each other as individuals, and appreciating the unique gifts and talents that each of us brings. You might want to begin a meeting with everyone around the table sharing one thing that each person is thankful for or one thing that you are looking forward to doing on the weekend. Some might say that we are too busy and can’t take the time for that, but relationship and trust building do take time. When the disciples tried to shoo children away, Jesus took the time to listen to and build a relationship with them, as he understood that he was encountering God within each of them.

As we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, may the lessons of His life and the words of the Gospels provide the guidance and support that each of us relies upon to share our stories, our successes and our burdens with one another.

God bless.

4 Principal Connections • Winter 2018 • Volume 22 • Issue 2

FROM THE EDITOR Deirdre Kinsella Biss

Moving Forward

Leadership is not just the sole responsibility of the school principal and vice-principal. Leadership is a shared responsibility and the professional work of everyone in a Catholic school. In order to see the intended changes we require in classrooms, teachers, students, parents and the community at large must take responsibility to lead and share their area of expertise.

Shared leadership is all about inclusion, voice and engagement. We know that in the long-term, top down leadership does not work. Creating ways to encourage partnerships and share leadership opportunities within a school is the next practical step in Ontario’s collaborative professionalism story. If we want schools to continue to improve their practice we have to work together with all stakeholders, to develop common understandings and consciously build on the communal nature of our Catholicity.

Dr. Jill Gowdie sets the stage for this edition of Principal Connections with her article, Hold It Like a Mirror. She connects sharing leadership with knowing our own story deeply, creating a disposition for real conversation and trusting in others. She sees developing a profound understanding of the relationship between thinking and belonging, and what that means to the individual and the community, as key.

The roots of shared leadership are found in the word “trust.” Michael Saver, author of the article Searching for Trust: The Gospel According to … Google? identifies the importance of strong relational trust in the adult commu-nity of a school. He explores the connection between staff psychological safety and learning, and provides us with food for thought about ways to recognize the presence of relational trust in our schools.

Steven Katz, Lisa Ain Dack and John Malloy explain the challenges involved with creating a common

understanding of shared leadership. They examine what shared leadership is and what it is not. Their article highlights the importance of both interdependence and individual accountability and the adaptive need for intelligent and responsive leadership actions.

Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley discuss their thoughts on the complexi-ties of change in education today. They identify shared responsibility in schools

as a way to move forward. Their article, Leading from the Middle, places student learning and well-being at the centre of the leaders’ practice. They describe leading from the middle as a way of bringing school and system leaders closer to the heart and soul of their practice.

Steve Munby ref lects on the value of the” self-aware, imperfect leader” in his article. This is the leader who is open to sharing. This type of leader humbly realizes that they do not have all the answers and willingly invites the expertise and help of others. If we want sustainable schools that are led well, we need to place the focus on doing what’s right for students and genuinely reach out to others for help, instead of striving for perfection.

As a school community we very much belong to each other, and when we share in leadership, develop partnerships and collaborate professionally, we are better at everything we do. Shared leadership is a mindset, a shift in practice that involves everyone, everywhere, all the time. To quote Parker Palmer, “ … in a genuine community, everyone must lead, everyone must follow, it is always both/and.” 1

Wishing you and your family a very blessed Christmas.

Shared leadership is a mindset, a shift in practice, that involves

everyone, everwhere, all the time.

1 Palmer. Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000 p. 74

Principal Connections • Winter 2018 • Volume 22 • Issue 2 5

By Dr. Jill Gowdie

Hold It Like a Mirror

By Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley

Leading from the

MIDDLE

THE INTELLIGENT, RESPONSIVE LEADER

By Steven Katz, Lisa Ain Dack and John Malloy

In Celebration of

By Steve Munby

Imperfect Leadership

24 Principal Connections • Winter 2018 • Volume 22 • Issue 2

Improving family engagement in school will require a change of mindset, with a new focus on developing partnerships through relationship building. We must

shift away from parents being involved predominantly in school events toward the deliberate process of engaging parents as partners and co-learners in their children’s’ learning, growth and development.

As a mother of five children, I have been heavily involved in their schooling and engaged with their education. We always encouraged our own kids to develop a love of learning, rather than simply focusing on marks. Report cards were rarely the centre of our discussions about school. Instead, we routinely emphasized to our children that marks weren’t as important as their love of learning. Our conversations were more about their engagement and excitement for learning than about the next test or report card. We tried to emphasize the importance of family engagement in learning as our children have grown.

Mind you that could backfire. I recall a phone call from a teacher. She was clearly puzzled as she said, “Your son says your family doesn’t focus on marks.” “That’s true,” I replied, becoming more curious by the minute. “Well,” she said, “I’ve given him the chance to redo a test to improve, but he told me, ‘No thank you, we don’t believe in marks at our house!”

What does the educational literature say? Decades worth of data are very clear that parent involvement makes a dif-ference in outcomes. Parent involvement within the school can take several forms: at school activities, volunteering, school meetings, library duties and so on. However, the literature finds that more important are at-home behaviours: engagement in learning by asking about school, having high expectations for success, supporting strategies for effective learning, and reading together.

The evidence for improved student learning is much stronger for activities and behaviours at home. Curiosity and nurturing a learning relationship with children are what power the strong correlation between parent engagement and students’ success. Importantly, however, the emphasis should not be only on homework. As a child psychiatrist I have witnessed much parent-child conf lict around homework, particularly in the elementary years. I have said that were I crowned, ‘Grand Education Queen’ for a day, I would ban the way homework is assigned altogether! This view was reinforced when famed educational researcher John Hattie demonstrated that homework as it is currently assigned has zero impact on student success. So rather than continuing to bark up the homework tree, I am suggesting the messaging that can universally get parents involved in the RIGHT effective engagement.

So, what can principals do? I already see a lot of important and encouraging activity by school administrators:• The Council of Ontario Directors of Education

(CODE) parent engagement materials are excellent to share with parents www.ontariodirectors.ca/parent_engagement.html

• People for Education also have some terrific documents and evidence based tip sheets: peopleforeducation.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Parent-Involvement-English.pdf

PARTNERSHIP WITH

PARENTSConnection is Key

By Dr. Jean Clinton

Releasing the Potential of Leadership-in-Community

By Michael Pautler and Marcelle DeFreitas

Catholic teaching describes the human person as ‘person-in-community’ rather than as an individual. To be Catholic means to understand and affirm the dignity and rights of each person while also recognizing that humanity has an essential communal nature, and that our best possibilities emerge in community.

In the Gospels, Jesus invites people into a ‘community of disciples’ and each disciple makes a personal decision to follow Jesus, and to turn toward their neighbour in love. Jesus led the disciples to work in the world for …

“justice, love and compassion, peace and fullness of life for all and the integrity of God’s creation.” 1 Jesus’ model of leadership in a ‘community-of persons’ informs and inspires our work in Catholic schools.

Catholic schools must be communities in which students can hear Jesus’ invitation to follow Him and grow in love toward all people. Every day, in every school, teachers and principals work together as disciples in community to guide the journey of learning for their students. All staff – teachers, educational assistants, secretaries, custodians, superintendents and directors – must invite students to meet the person of Jesus through our words, our actions and our manner.

The vocational invitation to be a principal in a Catholic school is a call to lead like Jesus; a call to lead in community, which, of necessity, ref lects a commitment to shared leadership. Becoming a principal presents the opportunity and responsibility to be a collaborative con-tributor who intentionally forms the social organization of the community, giving the members voice, eliciting and respecting the contributions of all.

Creating the2019 CPCO CALENDAR

By Deirdre Kinsella Biss and Leslie Fountain

Why the Topic of Trust?

Trust remains an ongoing issue in public systems, yet is a key ingredient to building successful operations and services. In education, relational trust is foundational to providing students with the opportunity to learn and grow. Relational trust begins with our Catholic faith and ref lects itself in our thinking, our relationships, the way we lead, the way we teach and our daily interactions with others. Trust creates a way of building community. Trust develops in different ways and is a precursor to collaboration.

Gathering the Research

We reached out to our Catholic partners to discover their thoughts on the importance and impact of “trust” in their work. Representatives from the Archdiocese of Toronto, Institute of Catholic Education, university partners, directors of education, superintendents, principals, vice-principals, trustees, business officials, teachers, students and parents were all invited to participate in the project. We asked three simple questions: Where do we start with developing relational trust? What does trust look like, sound like and feel like to you? How do you know trust exists in a relationship? The answers were rich, ref lective and thought provoking.

“In Renewing the Promise, our bishops remind us that “the work of Catholic schools involves initiating, facilitating and maintaining trusting relationships with and among Catholic educational partners. A sense of respect for the unique expertise and strengths of each, and generous cooperation that acknowledges and celebrates the accomplishments of all is essential to develop the mutual trust that nurtures effective working relationships”. (RTP, p. 9)”

Creating the 2019 CPCO Calendar, Catholic Partnerships Together in Trust, was a unique process of collaboration that exemplified a true sharing of leadership. The calendar focuses on the importance of trust in our daily work and features the authentic thinking and voices of our Ontario Catholic partners. Artwork created by Catholic secondary students brings to life the ideas of our Catholic community.

Principal Connections • Winter 2018 • Volume 22 • Issue 2 31

When school administrators promote a circular model of leadership, there is a place for everyone. Shared leadership can, and

should, include opportunities for staff, students, families and community partners to have an equitable voice in the development of a school culture that values and respects all stakeholders. When people truly slow down and listen to each other, the entire school community has an opportunity to develop into a caring, inclusive school setting that keeps student success and over all well-being at the core. St. David Catholic Elementary School is a school located in the inner city of Sudbury, Ontario. Although the property is surrounded by concrete and the hustle and bustle of city life, the school was intentionally rebuilt to provide opportunities for learning to transcend classroom walls and connect with the outdoors. The school building is “nestled in nature.” Huge ceiling-to-f loor windows, wood beams and cathedral ceilings help to bring the natural environment into the school. A traditional outdoor learning space, hiking trails and a rambling brook all surround the school building, helping to remind everyone who enters how interconnected to nature they are and how everything in life works in a circle, even the school’s leadership model.

St. David Catholic School has a student population of 260 students, almost half of which self-identify as First Nation, Métis or Inuit. The school supports many families living in poverty, struggling with addiction,

high crime rates and family illiteracy. Although families and the local community work diligently to ensure that the next generation of children will be proud, confident, educated leaders, the effects of residential schools and the 60’s Scoop are evident at St. David School.

The school leadership model ensures that Indigenous voices and theory are part of daily practice. The biggest and best asset the school has is people. Diverse people bring a wealth of knowledge, perspectives and theories of innovation that when tied together build a school culture that is rooted in equitable, inclusive practice. Traditional knowledge, as well as contemporary narratives, need to be part of the dialogue in order for all staff to better understand and meet student needs. Theories of innovation include experiential learning opportunities on the land. This includes connecting with nature as well as integrating language and math in outdoor educational experiences. Teachers and staff members are encouraged to take calculated risks. They know their learners and ensure opportunities relate to equitable experiences for all.

The introduction of a circular model of educational leadership supports the creation of a safe space and openness to take risks at all levels. People work together appreciating each other’s gifts and using these gifts to better support student learning opportunities.

The voices of Elders and traditional people in the community are a vital component to creating a model of leadership that encourages diversity, respect and

How Culture Supports Shared Leadership

By Dawn Wemigwans, Colin Lapalme and Vince Pawis

34 Principal Connections • Winter 2018 • Volume 22 • Issue 2

The successful leadership of an organization can rarely be attributed to one single person. Although

people in executive roles are traditionally recog-nized as formal leaders, astute organizations

capitalize on the expertise of all employees by providing them with opportunities to

use their unique skills and knowledge to effectively lead their peers.

Elementary and secondary schools provide an ideal organizational setting for shared leadership to f lourish because they are composed of highly educated teachers and support staff with specialized training in ministry, pedagogy and academic disciplines. Principals, who empower their teachers to set the direction of the

school and initiate large scale change to instructional practices, create an

educational community that takes ownership of the teaching and learning

process. At Cathedral High School, located in the inner city of the Hamilton-

Wentworth Catholic District School Board, shared leadership drives school improvement

planning and has resulted in a process whereby staff have established and taken ownership of the

organization’s goals and direction.

By Michael Lawlor

Empowering a Staff

Introducing Shared Leadership to School Improvement PlanningShared leadership rarely occurs organically in hierarchi-cal organizations such as schools. McCarty, Wallin, and Boggan (2014) contend that a principal must nurture this paradigm by assembling a leadership team with a wide range of expertise and cultivating it by providing the

necessary tools to make decisions that positively impact student success (p.3). We began our journey by introduc-ing a diverse team – consisting of representatives from chaplaincy, the clerical staff, Student Success, Special Education, classroom teachers and department heads – to

36 Principal Connections • Winter 2018 • Volume 22 • Issue 2

“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15: 5.

This biblical quote comes to mind when I ponder the elements of shared leadership.

Did Jesus lead this way – with “shared leadership?” Do we walk the same footsteps as Jesus did in sharing the word of his Father, in sharing leadership of the Kingdom of God, but in the context of Catholic school leadership? From my perspective, yes we do, in all aspects of Catholic school leaders and the expectations of the role.

Using this analogy of Jesus, as a public figure and leader, exercising aspects of shared leadership draws us closer to understanding the multi-facets of this leadership mindset in our schools.

What then are those aspects of shared leadership demonstrated over 2000 years ago, but viewed in our current times, as essential components of school leadership? I’ll review these facets of leadership that in my opinion are crucial “must-haves” in today’s world of Catholic school leadership.

As a principal of a Catholic elementary school, I believe in the educational research on growth mindsets and emotional intelligence. Daniel Goleman is one of those researchers, whose work, resonates in my philosophy on shared leadership. He states that to be effective with shared leadership qualities in whatever role you possess, you must be proficient and strong in various aspects of emotional intelligence. Goleman conveys that leaders who possess strong levels of the six emotional intelligence competencies will exercise an effective and dynamic shared leadership inf luence in their work

Mindsets & Emotional Intelligence

By Andre Lisowyk

Shared Leadership from the Perspective of a Catholic Elementary Principal

40 Principal Connections • Winter 2018 • Volume 22 • Issue 2

Can Principals Be Coaches?

By Jim Knight, Christian van Nieuwerburgh and John Campbell

In schools around the world, coaching is becoming one of the most popular methods for improving instruction,

student achievement and student well-be-ing. As coaches f lourish, many are asking whether principals and other leaders can also be coaches.

After studying coaching for two decades on three different continents, our unequivocal answer is yes … sort of.

Although many principals want to provide coaching, they often find it difficult to do so. Unfortunately, some teachers are cautious about being open with principals who will be evaluating their professional roles. As well, many principals simply do not have the time to move through an entire coaching cycle. Nevertheless, we believe school leaders can embrace a coaching approach as part of their leadership repertoire. This article suggests how leaders can implement a coaching approach in their day-to-day professional practice.

42 Principal Connections • Winter 2018 • Volume 22 • Issue 2

In an elementary school, Principal Elizabeth was approached by students who were concerned about the environment, in particular about the modes of transportation students used for arriving

at and leaving school. Elizabeth’s first response was to listen to the concerns of her students. She then worked closely with them to brainstorm possible solutions. This partnership between principal and students resulted in the establishment of older student mentors to support the initiative, as well as the formulation of an environmental council, which, in turn, led to additional opportunities for partnership between this principal and her students throughout the school year.

This example is not fictional, it is taken from a study, which examined the experiences of elementary principals in their quest to partner with the most integral stakeholder at the centre of student voice: the students themselves (Reaume, 2017). Many administrators engage in student voice as a regular part of their practice and these partnerships with students can take various forms for a plethora of pur-poses, such as collecting data for school initiatives, consulting with students for decision

making, responding to student concerns or interests, or simply because student voice is considered a standard part of their practice and school culture. This begs the question, how can we promote shared leadership with students in ways that extend beyond the typical representation of student voice as student government and/or student trustee?

Toshalis and Nakkula (2012) provide a framework, which depicts various forms student voice can take, dependent upon certain factors such as context. They categorize the range of experiences that make up the spectrum of student voice activities as a continuum where student inf luence, responsibility and decision-making roles increase as you move to the right (see diagram). As part of my research on how principals facilitate student voice, I examined the experiences between principals and their students in relation to this spectrum of student voice and some of these scenarios are highlighted here.

Examples of expression and consultation (left side of the spectrum) can be seen when Principal

George asked his students for input on their preferences for extra curricular activities. He learned that many students enjoyed playing

cricket with their families on weekends,

By Michelle Reaume

Growing Partnerships through Student Voice

50 Principal Connections • Winter 2018 • Volume 22 • Issue 2

Catchy title, don’t you think? Well, “everything” might be a bit of a stretch. But for most readers, this will at least be enough. Note that the title limits the paper to knowledge from research, by which I mean formal published research, not the important but informal kind we all do every day. And by “you” I am assuming that readers of this article are mostly practising school leaders, the majority of whom are in principal and vice-principal positions.

So, this is an article by someone who has done a lot of formal research on distributed leadership (DL) guessing at which aspects of research on the topic might be of some use to practising school leaders. The overarching message here is that you need to know quite a bit less about the research that has been published on this topic than most of the people writing about it think you do. You only need to know eight things and several of them are quite important.

Leadership is leadership no matter the source. The literature about distributed leadership includes much of the same hand ringing about definition common to the leadership literature more generally. But leadership is leadership, no matter the source. Whether distributed or individual, the exercise of influence on others for the purpose of achieving organizational goals remains a serviceable definition. So, DL is not a new model or conception of leadership practices as is sometimes claimed. It is the enactment of well-established leadership practices by several or more people, rather than one.

There are a handful of mostly synonyms for DL. The term “distributed” is one of a handful of related leadership concepts including, for example, shared, team, participatory, democratic and collaborative. Although

all part of the same family, there are sometimes subtle differences among these concepts as they are used in the literature. For example, shared leadership often implies wide and often emergent sources of leadership. Team leadership typically locates leadership in a cohesive group and assumes, much like collaborative leadership, that such joint effort exploits – and sometimes improves on

– individual capacities. Participatory leadership assumes greater motivation to implement decisions one has helped form, while democratic leadership is more about participants’ rights than their capacities. Even the term

“distributed leadership” is used in quite different ways.

DL is an old idea. While the amount of educational literature about distributed leadership began to be noticeable around 2000, the idea of distributed leadership is an old one variously traced back to 1954 and even as far back as 1250 AD. It might well qualify as the oldest “latest things” to surface in the leadership field in recent memory. DL is already part of schools’ DNA. Leadership, as defined above, is already widely distributed in virtually all schools. Schools have a slew of formal leadership posi-tions – not to mention chairs of teams and committees established to undertake unique or time-sensitive tasks. Informal leaders are common in almost all schools as, for example, the primary teacher other teachers turn to for advice on how to teach reading. Most experienced prin-cipals moving to a school understand just how important to their success it is to quickly identify and work with these informal opinion leaders. While DL is a relatively new focus of attention for educational researchers, at least some forms of DL have been a well-recognized and important part of schools for a very long time.

Everything You Need to Know about Research on Distributed Leadership By Kenneth Leithwood

52 Principal Connections • Winter 2018 • Volume 22 • Issue 2

KEY INGREDIENTS TO SHARED LEADERSHIP ☑ Empathy & ☑ Accompaniment

By Melissa Monachino and Alfonso Monachino

The definition of shared is “belonging to or experienced by two or more individuals.” The entire concept of Church is based on a shared experience with Christ: “Where

two or three gather in my name, there I am with them” (Matthew 18:20). To dig deeper into “shared leadership” from a biblical and 21st century perspective, we can look at both the Old and New Testaments for two models of shared leadership as well as ref lect on the concepts of empathy and accompaniment – two elements essential to shared leadership as a pathway to a 21st century encounter with Christ.

In Exodus 18, Moses experiences the overwhelming burden and isolation of being the sole leader and spiritual guide of hundreds of thousands of Israelites. It is his father-in-law, Jethro, who saw the f law in his leadership in saying, “What you are doing is not good. You will wear yourself out. The work is too heavy for you. You cannot handle it alone.” Upon ref lection, Moses moved towards a new model of shared leadership by appointing capable men as officials and judges to accompany him and his people towards the Promised Land.

The New Testament reveals God as the very model of shared leadership in the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) – each with its distinct role in building our relationship and uniting us with God. Jesus, Himself, recognized the importance of shared leadership in Mark 3:13 “Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to Him those He wanted, and they came to Him. He appointed twelve that they might be with Him and He might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.” One can say that Jesus’ humility, wisdom, love, faith, hope and vision as a leader ensured a solid succession plan that has sustained the Church for over 2000 years with the goal of providing millions of people with a true and transformational encounter with Christ.

Much educational research on leadership is looking at the relational and emotional dimensions of effective leaders on mobilizing collaborative 21st century learning cultures where deep learning occurs (Goleman, 1995, 2000, 2013; Leithwood & Beatty 2008; Langer 2009, Covey, 2006, Hargreaves, Boyle & Harris, 2014). The idea that co-learning is dependent upon strong relationships of mutual respect and trust is also well supported by

The CPCO office will be closed for the Christmas holidays, commencing Monday, Dec. 24, 2018, and will reopen on Monday, Jan. 7, 2019.

Voice and email messages received over the holidays will be returned on Jan. 7, 2019.

If this is an emergency, please contact Joe Geiser, Executive Director, at jgeiser@cpco.on.ca.

If assistance is required for CPCO’s Long Term Disability Program, contact Johnson Inc. at 1-877-709-5855.

May the Peace, Joy and Love of Christmas fill your heart and home throughout this festive season!

Catholic Principals’ Council | Ontario

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go, then, to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place,

which the Lord has made known to us.” So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph,

and the infant lying in the manger. Luke 2:15-16