Transaction or transformation?

by Tammy Townsend Denny, Associate Director

Leadership is about immersing ourselves in the needs of the here and now while holding space for an emergent future. It is both a response to the present realities and a movement toward newness. It is standing at the forefront in collaboration with the voices of the peripheries. It is reaching out and reaching up and reaching in all directions.

Leadership is about transformation. It is both stepping forward and stepping back as we invite others into the transformational process of becoming.

This legacy of leadership continues with the newest generations of women religious who embrace these paradoxes with courage, commitment, and collaboration. This leadership is one of responsibility and mutuality that holds within it a call for transforming ourselves, our communities, and our world.

Leonard Doohan writes in the book Spiritual Leadership about leadership that transforms, saying that “transformational leadership provides… vision and a sense of mission.” It cannot and does not exist in “us-them, top-down, superior-inferior” structures where transactions are prioritized over “genuine collaboration.”  Transformational leadership expands the diversity of voices at the table. Transactional leadership limits who gets to be a decision-maker.

We are living in a moment of transactional leadership as we watch the U.S. Administration dismantle protections and safeguards of human dignity. With control and fear, the Administrations’ acts of superiority are destroying foundational elements of justice throughout the world.

Our world is shifting. Change is here. But what will that change be? How will we co-create our present and our future? How will we meet transactions with transformation?

For the last 13 years, the Leadership Collaborative has been dedicated to fostering transformational leadership for religious life and the gospel mission, now and into the future. We believe in listening to the Spirit’s promptings, learning to navigate the emergent, and leading as a catalyst for transformation. Committed to our collaborative mission and values, we worked with 13 women writers to create the book Leaders of Hope, a collection of essays that speak not only to our understanding of religious life today, but also to the shifting world that is before us.  

During Lent, we invite you to become Leaders of Hope. Be courageous! Be synodal! Be a change agent! Be empowered! Be a bridge! Be a co-creator! Be challenged! Be a seed of change! Be a witness to the power of transformation!

Get "Leaders of Hope" here