 Many years ago “Lead Pastor” began to grow in popularity as the title of the person at the top of a church’s org chart. Presumably, the term replaced “Senior Pastor” for some well-meaning reason. Unfortunately, it was a change in name only. Few Lead Pastors - as their title might imply - operated any differently than their differently-titled peers.
In last week’s article, sparked by Patrick Lencioni’s The Motive, I summarized a common problem for the church: The most important responsibility of a CEO is staff management and leadership, but the most important weekly responsibility of a Senior Pastor (Rector, Lead Pastor, etc.) is teaching. This creates tensions for a dedicated teacher who is also, in practice, expected to be the church’s CEO. Typical Solution: As a church grows, it will hire an Executive Pastor (or Director) to relieve the Senior Pastor of the responsibilities of leading and managing the church staff. Like this...
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 A few days ago I finished Patrick Lencioni’s latest book, The Motive (2020, Jossey-Bass). As an unabashed Patrick Lencioni junkie, I read and recommend all his books. Patrick's concepts and tools form the basis for many of my organizational consulting services as I find they typically apply - on a one-for-one basis - to most churches. Patrick is also a dedicated Christian, so I like that too.
Let me summarize The Motive for you (spoiler alert). In comparing “Reward-centered leadership” to “Responsibility-centered leadership”, Patrick argues that the most important and relevant activities any company’s CEO can engage in relate to the leadership and management of his or her staff team. But these difficult responsibilities are exactly what many CEOs are pre-wired to “delegate, abdicate, or ignore” (p. 139). |
Dan DzikowiczChurch consultant, pastor, author, and Lectionary Press' founder. Archives
February 2021
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