The Catholic Chruch needs a reformation, not in the sense of The Reformation, but a managerial and corporate one. If our Bishops are not yet convinced of the need, this morning’s NYT might help: LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11 - The confidential personnel files of 126 clergymen in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles accused of sexual misconduct with children provide a numbing chronicle of 75 years of the church's shame, revealing case after case in which the church was warned of abuse but failed to protect its parishioners.
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Throughout the files, cases of child molesting or rape are dealt with by indirection or euphemism, with references to questions of "moral fitness" or accusations of "boundary violations." For years, anonymous complaints of abuse were ignored and priests were given the benefit of every doubt.
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The personnel files - some of which date from the 1930's - were produced as part of settlement talks with lawyers for 560 accusers in a civil suit here. The church provided them to The New York Times in advance of their public release in the next few days. The archdiocese is releasing them in part to make good on a promise to parishioners to come clean about the church's actions in the scandal, church officials said. It also hopes that the release will spur settlement talks, which appear to have stalled in recent months.
Secular organizations learn from failures. They ask themselves why the failures occurred and then institute leadership reformations in order to ensure future success. If they don’t, they suffer the consequences. Sports teams lose. Armies are defeated. Corporations are punished in the stock market and sometimes see their competitors prevail.
The Bishops, however, secure in the promise that The gates of hell will not prevail (Mt. 16:18) have been notably slow to examine their failures and reform their management practices.
Secular organizations have developed some explanations for systemic failures and approaches to correcting them.
Consider this US Army War College study on toxic leadership (scroll down to 67 and click for a pdf copy).
In 2003 Secretary Thomas White asked the Army War College to assess how the Army could effectively detect how to detect “those who might have destructive leadership styles”. Definitions of toxic leaders vary but include
• “apparent lack of concern for the well being of subordinates”
• interpersonal techniques that negatively affects organizational climate
• conviction by subordinates that the leaders is motivated by personal self-interest”.Reed reports that virtually every AWC student participating could recall working for a toxic leader. (Would the results be any different in the church or in business?). Reed quotes the cries of anguish when toxic leaders make the promotion list: ‘O my God, how could they have possibly done that to my Army?’
The military culture, with its emphasis on authority, makes it harder for people at the top to perceive dysfunctional leadership styles. The evaluation that counts is the Officer Evaluation Report. Unfortunately the writers of OERs often suffer from “CEO disease’ – “near total ignorance about how one’s own mood and actions appear to the organization…”
The AWC study suggests that, while subordinates are not in a position to judge a commander’s performance, they can help in an assessment of command climate. Command climate assessment programs will decrease the odds of selecting toxic leaders.
A Bishop who knowingly tolerates serial child-abusers on his staff fits the definition of a toxic leader.
UPDATE: Amy Welborn looks at the sorry story of the Bishops in Philadelphia and calls it "Enablers Row." This is just one more example of toxic leadership.
Or consider the insights from business schools dedicated to teaching executives how to improve personal and organizational performance. For example, Sidney Finkelstein, at Dartmouth, has conducted extensive case studies of how successful executives ignored reality until they failed. Hard working and intelligent executives fail, he suggests because:
- of a flawed mindset that distort a company’s perception of reality
- delusional attitudes that keep this inaccurate reality in place
- breakdown in communications systems developed to handle potentially urgent information.
- leadership qualities that keep a company’s executives from correcting their course.
The Bishops conference knew in 1985 that priestly pedophilia would be a severe problem. Their collective behavior fits the Finkelstein model.
In March of 2004, I made this comment:
In the March 12 issue of Commonweal Andrew Greeley suggests, “Many in Rome and elsewhere contend that the Church does not need social science because it has the Holy Spirit.” Greeley is correct. The Church could set aside its internal doctrinal controversies and examine its leadership failures. Barring a miracle, it won’t.
This opinion may now need to be reformed. There are signs of change on the horizon. America has published a review of the results of Church in America Leadership Roundtable 2004. (America is available to subscribers only on the web. Let me know if you are interested and I can email the article to you.) The roundtable of corporate and non-profit leaders, gave the church some recommendations for reform. Here are some extracts:
"A new organization, the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management, was established in March 2005 to implement the Wharton recommendations and, in the spirit of collaboration, a special bishops’ advisory group under the leadership of Bishop Dale Melczek has been named to work closely with the N.L.R.C.M.
The recommendations—which have been presented to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops—provide a roadmap for strengthening the organizational, financial and managerial structures of the church at three fundamental levels: national, diocesan and parish.Roundtable participants were firm in their belief that at a time of greatest need, the church lacks effective management systems and controls in the areas of governance, human resources and finance. While acknowledging that the church is not a corporation, there was a consensus that church leaders can learn a great deal from the way leading businesses face up to—and solve—problems in these three critical areas.
As an important first step, the conference recommended that the U.S.C.C.B. encourage each bishop to conduct every five years, in conjunction with his ad limina visit to Rome, a comprehensive self-examination of the diocese, redefining its goals and the means it employs to reach them.
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The roundtable also recommended significant improvements in the process by which bishops are selected. While recognizing the primacy of the Holy See, it is suggested that the process for choosing bishops be supplemented with the help of human resources professionals aware of successful models from other major nonprofit institutions that choose leaders, such as universities, foundations and hospitals. These additions could include a clear definition of qualifications (managerial as well as spiritual), face-to-face interviews and a wide-ranging process to identify the best possible candidates'.
The Army can reconsider its selection process in order to reduce the odds of choosing toxic leaders. Could the Church do the same?
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Diocesan Level
Because of their dominant role in each diocese, bishops should play a central role in triggering improved church management. Each diocesan bishop should, the roundtable suggested, appoint a chief administrative officer (if the function does not already exist) with managerial training and experience. The bishop should then establish a management advisory council of experienced lay professionals to assist him and the chief administrator in the evaluation and improvement of management practices in the diocese.
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The Leadership Roundtable called on the bishops to create a strong performance review program for priests, religious brothers and sisters and lay ministers."
Looks like a “reformation” to me – but don’t get your hopes up.
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