15 reasons why pastors can’t lead effectively
In 1976, leadership guru Warren Bennis wrote his attention-grabbing, The Unconscious Conspiracy: Why Leaders Can’t Lead.
The typical American evangelical pastor has the same problem which Bennis described: he lacks competence at a skill which is vitally important to the effectiveness of local churches: leadership.
Estimates from Gary McIntosh, Paul Bordon, Gordon Penfold, Aubrey Malphurs and others agree that approximately 10 percent of American evangelical pastors have the leadership skills needed to transition congregations from ineffectiveness to effectiveness.
So why can’t pastors lead effectively?
1. They’re focused on the fellowship of the flock, not the mission of the flock.
According to Jesus (Matthew 16:18), the Church is supposed to storm the gates of hell and snatch people out of the flames. But human organizations of all kinds tend to devolve into sources of comfortable fellowship.
The kind of fantastic fellowship experienced by the Philippian Christians (Philippians 1:5) can only be attained by focusing on mission, not by focusing on fellowship. The best fellowship is enjoyed by men and women who are passionately and prayerfully on-mission together.
2. They’re focused on the comfort of the sheep.
Sheep want to be led to green pastures and beside still waters. They don’t want change, they don’t want to be sheared, they don’t want to go through scary valleys and they don’t want to go on dangerous missions to reach lost sheep.
The easiest way for any pastor to be loved by the sheep is to focus on their comfort. But is being loved by the sheep a worthy goal?
3. They’re focused on individuals, not the flock.
One of the quickest ways to ruin the missional effectiveness of any congregation is to put individuals over the health and effectiveness of the group.
We can’t hold Pastor Bob accountable because he’s the founder of our church. We can’t confront Elder Pete about never actually doing anything because he’s related to half the church. It doesn’t take many unaccountable individuals to create a dysfunctional church.
4. They’re addicted to human approval.
Becoming addicted to human approval is easy. Ultimately, it’s more “worldly” than smoking and drinking and gambling because it brings us the pleasure of human strokes, in this life, at the expense of Jesus’ approval at the judgment seat.
5. They weren’t trained for it.
Christian universities and seminaries are increasingly focusing on the value of leadership. In my day, however, leadership was something you heard about from time to time in chapel, but there were no classes on it.
6. They weren’t hired for it.
Smaller churches, in particular, are not looking for their pastors to be leaders.
They want someone to comfort them, to pour oil on their wounds and to encourage them. Those needs are best met by teams of laypersons, not the senior or solo pastor, who is desperately needed as a leader, not a chaplain (and it’s very hard to be both).
7. They’re confused about servant leadership.
When Jesus taught his disciples about being servant leaders (Mark 10:35-45), he wasn’t giving them a ministry description for leadership. He was talking about the attitude of the godly leader.
The servant leader serves others by leading them well, for their sakes, and supremely, for God’s glory.
8. They’re not being coached for it.
As pastors, older and wiser coaches who have been where we are now are invaluable. In no area is this truer than in our role as leaders. Great pastors find and take advantage of great coaches.
9. They have guilty consciences.
Here’s one more reason to clean up our lives and get our bad habits and secret sins out of the way. A guilty conscience stifles our prayers as we kneel before God and strangles our confidence as we stand before people.
10. They have a false understanding of humility.
Would-be leaders from certain cultural backgrounds are plagued by this. In my Midwestern, Norwegian-Lutheran, rural background, humility precluded leadership. Anybody purporting to stand in front of a group and say, “Follow me to a better place” was seen as having a “big head.”
11. They are haunted by past leadership failures.
Just about anyone who has led successfully has also led unsuccessfully. Winston Churchill famously said, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
12. They believe that leadership and dependent prayer are incompatible.
Many of us have heard or read something like the following: “I was deeply into reading and learning about leadership but I was still failing. When I got serious about prayer, God starting using me greatly and I repented of my interest in leadership.”
But Christian leadership is a spiritual ministry, which means that it’s powered by prayer. Praying for the success of our leadership doesn’t eliminate the need to offer God’s people good, wise, informed, bold leadership. God, in fact, gives great leadership in answer to powerful prayers.
13. They believe that their temperaments disqualify them.
There is some truth to the concept of the “born leader.” Some of us find it much easier to become good leaders than others do.
But the studies of James Kouzes and Barry Posner (The Leadership Challenge), as well as anecdotal evidence demonstrate that ordinary people can learn how to lead. The character traits can be developed by our all-powerful God and the skills needed can be learned and sharpened over time.
14. They think that it’s not biblical.
Many pastors believe that the Bible’s statements entrusting the governance of churches to elders (Acts 20:17ff; 1 Peter 5:1-4; 1 Timothy 5:17ff) rule out the possibility of one of these elders serving as the leader of the group.
But the best elders know that “groups don’t lead, groups are led” and that churches which become effective are almost always led by capable pastor-leaders.
The team of elders doesn’t need to give up its authority and responsibility to entrust the leadership of the group and the supervision of the church’s ministry leaders and staff to a godly, competent pastor.
15. He thinks that congregational unanimity is essential.
Unity is important, but 100 percent unanimity is a dream. Some people are always going to resist the proposals of their leaders, no matter how worthy they are and no matter how carefully they have been presented.
The pastor who will not present the proposal until he’s sure of a 100 percent positive response will simply never present the proposal.
Have you been unable to lead for one or more of the above reasons? What can you do to overcome your leadership challenge?
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