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Our plan was simple and highly anticipated—meet my friend Helen at choir rehearsal, then go for an evening treat of ice cream sundaes. I arrived at the church a little early. Rehearsal was underway. Through the small window in the sanctuary door, I could see the choir gathered in the chancel, each member holding an open black folder with sheet music, and all eyes focused on the director. I eased the heavy wooden door open, careful not to let it groan, walked halfway down the aisle, and slid quietly into a pew.Helen stood on the third step with the altos. Our eyes met. She smiled, a knowing, conspiratorial smile. I smiled back. I was certain we were both already thinking about hot fudge and vanilla beans. Helen had sung in this choir for more than ten years. She loved it. The choir was part of her spiritual rhythm, as familiar as prayer.As I waited, the choir director led them through two pieces: one hymn, one gospel song. The choir was faithful and earnest. Their sound was fine. Solid. Dependable. And… just… okay.Near the end of rehearsal, the director called the organist, Randall, forward. Randall had been hired about nine months earlier, and—somewhat reluctantly—the director allowed him to direct the choir from time to time.Randall stood, slid off the organ bench, and moved quickly to the front. One of the singers took her place at the piano. The choir closed their black binders and focused on the new conductor. Randall said nothing. He simply looked at the choir, lifted his arms and waited, gently. The pause itself felt like an invitation. Then he nodded to the pianist, who began playing in the tempo Randall shaped with his hands and arms.After a few measures, Randall brought the choir in.Their sound stopped me cold. I was stunned. The music was not louder. It was clearer. Fuller. Alive. Holy. As Randall conducted, he confidently called out instructions—round the tone here, lift the final consonant there. Each instruction was met with trust. The choir adjusted, leaned in, sang intensely. They sang a verse. Randall stopped them, offered a few more words, and started again from the top.In less than ten minutes, they had rehearsed the entire piece, solos and all. The choir sounded polished, consistent. I sat bewildered.How could the same group of people sound merely adequate under one director and extraordinary under another?When rehearsal ended, Helen gathered her things and hurried down the aisle. We greeted each other and headed for the ice cream shop. She ordered a banana split; I chose a root beer float. We sat outside on a picnic bench, spoons in hand, evening air wrapped around us, glad we had this moment together.Once we were settled, I told her what I had witnessed. I named the contrast. “When your director leads, the choir sounds just okay. But when Randall leads, you sound incredible!”Helen nodded. “We know,” she said gently. “All of us know.” I asked if the choir was undermining the director. She shook her head. “No. We love him. We do exactly what he asks.” Then she paused, took a breath to let the truth land softly. “Randall is just a better musician. He hears more. He knows more. He’s led more. He brings out what’s already in us.” She took another bite of her ice cream. “Randall doesn’t make us better people,” she said. “He just helps us sing who we already are. That’s why we sound better.”Helen already knew, and I had witnessed, that sometimes the very best leadership is about wisdom, listening, and the quiet ability to call forth the best in others.When we consider the roles and responsibilities of educational leaders and administrators, we recognize that the same is true. My hunch is that the primary job of administrators is to call the best out of teachers and staff people by helping them develop their better selves. The highly complex industry of education would have us believe that an administrator’s job is upholding the bureaucracy. Yet we know that the educational enterprise, at its core, is profoundly a human centered endeavor. Perhaps we have paid too much attention to maintaining the institutional mechanisms of teaching without realizing that leaders of educational communities must model healthy relationships as the most important factor of their responsibility. Presidents and Deans, do not miss opportunities to call forth the best in others. This might be your key responsibility and contribution. Reflect …Where in your leadership are you managing systems and policies efficiently, but missing opportunities to listen deeply enough to call forth the fuller gifts already present in your faculty, staff, and students?Who within your institution is “singing just okay” under your leadership—not because they lack talent or commitment, but because your leadership has not yet created the trust, clarity, or inspiration that invites their best?How often do you seek honest feedback about the impact of your leadership—and are you prepared to hear, without defensiveness, what your community already knows?In what ways are you cultivating your own growth, your listening, your wisdom, your relational capacity—so that your leadership expands what others are capable of becoming?If your primary responsibility is not simply to maintain the institution but to call people into their better selves, what would you need to do differently this semester, this year, or starting tomorrow? Make a list. Make a plan. 

The Wabash Center teaches toward freedom in hopes of liberation and healing. We have learned that acts of freedom occur in many forms, and occasionally involve receiving permission. Since 2019, I have had the honor of reading the feedback forms completed by participants at the end of events and programming experiences. In addition to reading the feedback, there are regular occasions of extemporaneous comments from participants about the insights they have gained during the convened conversations. There is a reoccurring theme: the experience of having been given permission. They have reported having received permission to move towards new habits, practices, attitudes, approaches, and aspirations. Permission to strive for improved teaching is a key theme. Permission to expect more care, consideration and regard from the institutions by which our participants are employed is often mentioned.Much of this feedback comes from early-career colleagues for whom learning to navigate faculty culture is new. Similarly, there are a significant number of seasoned colleagues for whom the Wabash Center sponsored conversations are lifegiving and permission providing.I hear gratitude in this feedback. More importantly, I hear that the giving of permission has been moments of empowerment, agency, healing and inspiration toward freedom. I want to share with you a list of the kinds of permissions that are reported in hopes that you too might be encouraged towards new freedoms.Participants have said that, I received permission …….to develop my own voice, to speak up and speak out without embarrassment, fear, or guiltto take the authority given me by my role and responsibility through hire, tenure or promotionto think differently about the established traditions or about the outmoded presumptions of my institution or academic fieldto, rather than give my power away, make decisions that are faithful to my values and ethicsto command and adjust my own syllabus in my own coursesto act as a good citizen in my institution in ways that align with my own needs, wants, aspirations, desires and longing; to work in integrityto prioritize my mental or physical health and the wellbeing of my familyto teach across disciplines for the benefit of my students and in ways that meet their expressed curiositiesto strive for a work/life balance and maintain that balance over my careerto say “No” to requests which do not suit me or which would overload or overwhelm meto ask that I be called by the name of my choosing (with or without title) and that my name be correctly pronouncedto report acts of bullying and aggression against me or othersto seek counseling, coaching, mentoring, spiritual direction throughout my careerto take the time and needed psychic space to grieve over the failure of a significant achievement or the loss of a belovedto be creative, imaginative, and wonder as an approach to teachingto pursue outside interests, hobbies, and playto resist grind culture, to resist productivity at the expense of my own wellness or the wellness of my familyto communicate when acts of violence like racism, sexism, classism, homophobia occurto parse between the obligations of my scholar/teacher identity and my employment dutiesto rest.The list is in no way comprehensive or exhaustive. I give you the list so you can see the kinds of issues which need to be attended to so that a healthy work environment is created and maintained. It takes hard work to move from a toxic and unhealthy culture to a culture of care, belonging, and justice. Perhaps giving permission to individuals to make healthy communal choices is a start.