Image
Audio file
President and CEO, Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of St. Louis
One of the pleasures of conducting these interviews has been getting to talk to leaders at very different stages in their leadership journey. It’s been especially delightful to talk to people in brand new roles of authority and to hear them speak about what they are discovering about power while these discoveries are still fresh and surprising for them. I had the great joy of getting to talk with Dr. Jared Bryson, the CEO of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, when he was only 100 days into his new job.
Jared had been 14 years with Mercy Health before stepping into this position—a background that prepared him well for understanding the board and ecclesial relations he’d now be managing. But when I talked with him, he was still trying to figure out how to steward the new powers with which he’d been entrusted, and in a particular way he was wrestling with the heighted power of his speech. This interview formed the basis for much of what I ended up writing about in Chapter 2 of Redeeming Power.
Fortunately, Jared has a background in the study of spirituality, and in particular monastic spirituality, that he was already relying upon to ground him long before he started in this new role. But as you’ll hear, fidelity to regular spiritual practice and direction was becoming even more important to him now.