To influence?

25th April 2025

I hope that it’s been a good week. Two four-day weeks for many of us. It has felt a little bit part-time. Maybe next week will feel like something of a shock to the system, and so to make us all feel better, we’ll have another Bank Holiday the following Monday. All this and then we are into the SATs and exam season.

In addition to that we have the prospect of a mini-heatwave next week. We hit a sweltering 25C on Wednesday before dropping back to the seasonal norms for the Bank Holiday weekend. We’ll be discussing water shortages, droughts and hosepipe bans very soon.

I want to recognise that it will be the funeral of Pope Francis this coming weekend, and I know that some within our community will be deeply affected by his passing – you have my best wishes.

Sadly, I think the release of the hugely successful and very good film Conclave may affect people’s views of the events in Rome over the coming days and weeks. However many times we might want to point out that it was a drama, not a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentary, there will be some who will believe that the upcoming process to elect a new Pope will be riddled with as much intrigue and mis-behaviour. I would suggest not, but I’m not sure the voice of the logic will be heard that clearly. Let’s hope that the Catholic Cardinals are immune from such influence and behaviours and that they take a decision that the whole of the Roman Catholic family is comfortable with and can celebrate. We await the white smoke.

We are in incredibly challenging and interesting times. We can suffer from sensory, news and events overload. It is very difficult to remain moderate and thoughtful in these increasingly polarised and polarising times. I didn’t watch the news briefings of papal activity (over the past few years) but I get a sense that the late Pope Francis did emphasise tolerance, acceptance, understanding, moderation and calmness. The role of the Pope is clearly an overtly religious role but it is, at least from my perspective, something of a global leadership role. The papacy has to navigate a global role of leading without overt power. The power to influence, not direct. And it is in that role as an influencer where integrity, understanding and humanity lie; advising people to follow, counselling people to be moderate, nudging people towards reasonable and humane actions. A tough thing to pull off but all the more powerful when it’s done and done well.

I know that the concept of the ‘influencer’ is increasingly important, via social media exposure. We are all influencers, we all lead. And for most of us it is how we project, what we actually say and do, how we hold ourselves, how we conduct ourselves and what drives us. I look forward to a period in our schools and in the college when we can only influence those of our charges who are readying themselves for the SATs and exams. The time is for us to bring our influence to bear. We need to encourage them to do it for themselves is upon us – there is no other way.

‘A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops’. Henry Adams

‘The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority’. Ken Blanchard