By Adrian Pyle
School principals hold complex roles. They are educators, strategists, and leaders of people. In faith-influenced schools, they also hold responsibility for how the community understands what might be sacred and how that understanding shapes daily practice.
Theology is not only about the dusty tomes of religiosity (and some would say it’s not at all about that). It is the way we imagine what is of ultimate worth and how that imagination influences behaviour and decision-making. Every choice in a school around curriculum, wellbeing and policy reflects a view of what matters most about being human.
Boards and chaplains obviously have a role in this work. When we talk about “ethos”, we are talking about the shared imagination of meaning that sits beneath operations and planning. The question is whether principals are supported to engage with this imagination, or whether they are left to manage inherited language and tradition without help to interpret it.
Within the Uniting Church, leadership is understood as discernment undertaken in community. It involves listening for how the Spirit moves through people, circumstances and context. This means that leadership in our schools is theological by nature. It shapes how the community listens, decides, and acts together.
Faith-influenced schools do not need their principals to act as clergy. They do need leaders and boards who can hold space for reflection, who can connect purpose with practice, and who understand that governance is not only technical but also moral.
To lead with soul is to pay attention to how decisions form people as well as systems. It is to ask, often and quietly, what kind of community we are becoming.
