Forming faith leaders in Catholic schools

This article focuses on the challenge of faith leadership in Catholic schools. In particular, it draws on recent research conducted in Victorian Catholic schools that aims to understand how principals conceptualise and enact their role as faith leaders. This research finds that principals see faith leadership in terms of a religious mission of evangelisation and they believe that this mission is integral to their role as principal in a Catholic school. At the same time, they are mindful of their limits in respect to their faith leadership capabilities. Moreover, they worried that the next generation of school leaders lacked the knowledge, skills and attitudes to engage faith leadership in a changing social and cultural context. Consequently, they recommend faith leadership formation for teachers, as well as principals, their deputies and assistants. This article concludes by suggesting a way forward with the promotion of a new model for leadership formation that could be adopted by those interested in a 'bottom-up' approach to building faith leadership capabilities.