Dear St Andrew’s community

Last Tuesday I shared my annual address with the Secondary community at the  Presentation Evening. It began by talking about two CEO’s from the USA…. Darwin Smith became CEO of Kimberley Clark in 1971 and held the role for 20 years until 1991. In his first year, with the company not doing well, he made a difficult strategic decision to shift out of office paper products and into consumer products, selling some of their mills and investing the proceeds into consumer products with brands such as Huggies and Kleenex.

The second was Colman Mockler. He started as CEO of Gillette in 1975 and managed to save the company from three hostile take overs, taking the company to new heights of success. Under his management Gillette came to dominate the market. In 1991, after 16 years as CEO, Colman was on top of the world. Forbes magazine put him on the cover of their January issue celebrating his leadership and success.

So what do these two people have in common? Both Smith and Mockler displayed similar personal characteristics and traits that contributed to the successes of their companies.  One of the similar traits was their humility. Not a word used very much anymore but defined as the ‘quality of having a modest or low view of one’s importance’ or ‘holding power loosely for the sake of others’. These CEO’s exhibited a fiery work ethic and willingness to make risky decisions to further benefit their respective companies, yet here’s where the humility kicked in. When their decisions led to success, these leaders tended to point to the work of their colleagues or general good fortune. When the company fell under hard times, they accepted the blame on themselves and looked for the next breakthrough idea.

Jim Collins is a well-known author who writes about Leaders and Leadership. Collins describes leaders like Smith and Mockler as those who can deflect praise and accept responsibility. He uses an analogy of the window and the mirror to explain this. Their humility led these leaders to look out the window to apportion credit to factors outside themselves when things go well. If they can’t find a specific person or event, they credit good luck. At the same time, they look in the mirror to apportion responsibility, never blaming others or bad luck when things go poorly. In comparison, lower ability leaders did just the opposite. They’d look out the window for someone or something outside of themselves to blame for poor results but would preen in front of the mirror and credit themselves when things went well.

Who can we think of today, who pops into our heads as leaders who display this character strength of humility? Sadly, very few. As we reflect on who is portrayed in the media, particularly banking leaders, or look at some of our political leaders, they tend to be much more about self. But I wonder, rather than being too critical, perhaps sadly they are reflecting where society is heading. We live in a self-orientated, ‘me’ driven society and one spin off from that is the notion that ‘I am not responsible for anything that goes wrong’, but very happy to accept that ‘I did well’ if the outcome is successful. I recall vividly the day Peter Beattie, former Premier of Queensland admitted on television that he made a mistake, personally owned the decision and told the people of Queensland he had reversed it. Now you could call it a political back-flip, but at the time, it was one of the first moments we had seen a public leader take that sort of ownership.

So my question is, have we moved to the point where we have unintentionally and maybe subconsciously created the notion that responsibility is no longer owned, nor even shared, but given away? I was scared when I did a quick Google search to explore blame vs responsibility. The first hits all focussed around the notion ‘stop blaming yourself’.  I recognise that in many ways, from a well-being point of view, this is true.  We can’t always take personal responsibility for the actions of others.  However, to be truly human, to gain fulfillment, and true confidence in yourself, there must be some level of personal accountability for our actions. It is an age-old problem. Sophocles the Greek playwright said, “It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it.”

Personal responsibility is an important skill that all children need to learn. It has an important lesson to teach; it will teach children about how to set their own goals and standards, about what children expect themselves to accomplish and who they expect themselves to be. Teaching children to blame someone or something else instead deprives them of an opportunity to grow. It’s quite easy for us as parents or teachers to meddle. Rather we can help children manage their inevitable encounters with personal responsibility, to appropriately shoulder the blame for themselves, and to cope with that sometimes-painful awareness of self. Of course, most of us want to protect our children from pain where ever possible and offer comfort.  We might respond to a situation by saying ‘I’ll deal with that for you, and smooth it all over’. Whilst comforting and supporting is natural, we mustn’t shield our children too extensively from the challenge of responsibility because they will inevitably experience it repeatedly in later life.  Our aim is to build them up to be capable and strong, they need to learn how to shoulder responsibility, so they can better manage those feelings in future. That’s part of enabling our students to become resilient and capable adults. It’s what we want from our leaders.

For me, humility is crediting that the success of this College is due to so many people and the different roles they play. I’m also a realist. If something isn’t going well or achieving our vision, then I must accept responsibility for that and respond in a way that addresses that. This is the same notion we need to teach and just as importantly, model to our children. Our challenge is to educate well; if I was to wish for one thing that I think would improve student achievement, student well-being and overall effectiveness of education, it would be when our community, students, parents, staff, the Principal, all thoughtfully and appropriately apportioned praise to others and attributed responsibility to themselves. The window and the mirror.  Our values here at the College speak to humility, to responsibility, of holding power loosely for the sake of others. It’s not about puffing ourselves up with how great we are but about saying how can we do better, how can we reflect on our learning, take responsibility when something isn’t quite right and do better after reflection. If a St Andrew’s student can adopt and model this attitude, then they will indeed walk confidently into their future.

Best wishes

Reverend Chris Ivey 

PRINCIPAL