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The leaders of the Diocese of Albany seem, at times, to have a Herculean task.

Whether it is pastors, pastoral associates or school principals, their workload, which also includes dealing with the emotional trauma of a seemingly endless pandemic, is never done. But what if there was a way to become a more effective, ethical and emotionally aware leader?

That is what a collaboration between Siena College and the Diocese aims to do.

The Institute for Pastoral Leaders is a brand-new leadership advancement series that will be offered to leaders in the Diocese of Albany and run by Siena’s Institute for Leadership Development.

“One of the issues that we saw was, a number of pastoral leaders, primarily pastors, were expressing their challenge for managing all of the different aspects of parish life and all the different needs that were coming at them from people who expressed those needs,” said Father David LeFort, vicar general of the Diocese of Albany. “And (Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger) has regularly said it doesn’t fall solely on pastors to shepherd parishes. There are so many people who, with the pastor, could supply for the needs that come to us.”

The Institute for Pastoral Leaders is funded by a $499,402 grant (titled “Trauma-Informed Leadership Development Program”) from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, which Siena applied for and must be used this year. The institute is slated to start in late May and open to roughly 50 people in leadership positions in the Diocese. There will be six day-long customizable sessions — with large group meetings and smaller breakout groups — that will be held one day each month. A Zoom meeting has been scheduled for March 23 at 5:30 p.m. for interested parties. Use this link — https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87364945272?pwd=bnhKeTUweWlFSjBJN1FIdDY1QVI5Zz09 — to join the meeting.

Charles Seifert, professor of management and dean of the School of Business at Siena, said he and his colleague — Erik Eddy, professor of management at the school as well as the executive director of the Institute of Leadership Development — worked closely with the Bishop and Father LeFort to design the program.

“There are multiple goals of the program overall,” said Seifert, who was also a member of the diocesan Abuse Task Force. “First it is to develop community; to help enhance the community between the diocesan leaders, the clergy, the pastoral associates and even the principals within the different schools. At the same time, we are also looking at helping to enhance or develop some of those leadership abilities of those individuals.

“The seminaries do a wonderful job of teaching theology, but they don’t necessarily talk about those skills that are necessary to effectively run a parish. It really is an ongoing effort so we can make it more efficient for them. One of the things that we are always doing is continuous improvement but we frequently forget about it ourselves and this really is an opportunity for all of the leaders within the Diocese to continue to develop and grow their own personal leadership abilities.”

Siena College’s Institute for Leadership Development is well known throughout the area for its customized leadership development programs. Some of the groups that they have worked with include General Electric, Honest Weight Food Coop, Albany Medical College and the New York State Department of the Budget. 

“The goal of the Institute for Leadership Development is to develop leaders in the Capital Region so this fits very nicely within the work that we do,” said Eddy of the initiative. “We are going to be doing some leadership development of them as individuals, some development of their ability to interact with others and some development of their ability to lead their organizations. We have a great opportunity here from priests through pastoral associates to principals to really allow them to build the skills that are going to be most useful to them in their future.”

And it will develop more effective collaborations throughout the Diocese. 

“What we are hoping that is going to happen is that people come in teams, that a priest would bring a couple of pastoral associates and as part of this engagement they might figure out a better way to lead the parish,” Eddy added. “The priest might feel like I am doing everything and the pastoral associate might say, ‘I can do that.’ Let’s work out how to better the relationship here so we are not so overwhelmed and we can better serve the community.”

Some of the topics covered on leadership development will be what you might expect: “communicating effectively” and “making effective decisions.” But a large part of the institute will be about “enhancing emotional intelligence,” which Siena defines as “the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.” This is of paramount relevance when leaders have to deal with the trauma of pandemic.

“Everyone has now experienced a couple years of serious trauma,” Father LeFort said. “And so our pastoral leaders soon are going to be approached by so many different traumatic needs that are going to be addressed that we thought Erik and Chuck and their distinguished program could be a huge benefit for all kinds of pastoral leaders, including principals of our schools. Those people are going to be asked to respond to so many divergent needs that we really need this program at this particular time.”

To learn more about the Institute for Pastoral Leaders, please email Seifert at seifert@
siena.edu.

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