A Candid Letter to Senior Pastors

Dear Senior Pastor:

I’m afraid you may not like this letter, and to tell the truth, I write it with some regret. You may vigorously disagree, and perhaps even decide to crumple these pages into small wads. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to write because of all the needlessly stunted ministries I run into.

Let’s start with a statement I hope we agree on: “Senior ministers should pay dose attention to the care, feeding, and motivation of staff.”

Do they?

Do you?

Frankly, I’ve found very few do. Instead, they often drain the staff member of whatever motivation was there before employment! Take youth ministers. They last only eighteen months on the average, and I lay most of the blame at the senior pastor’s feet.

Am I too rough? Maybe you don’t have these problems, but I’m deeply troubled that so many do. As a church consultant I work with many denominations. In my view, the overwhelming majority of associate staff members are frustrated and often angry. Serving as a staff member in a local church can be the most painful position in ministry. Shocking examples of staff mismanagement are legion.

Much of the responsibility lies with the senior pastor. I’m not saying he’s a villain; he’s usually a victim of having never been trained to be a good supervisor. His style is often modeled after rigid hierarchical patterns, and he seldom taps into people who could help him change.

It doesn’t need to be this way! Serving on a church staff can be a stimulating, rewarding, growing experience. In fact, both you and your staff members should be enriched by it. But I see the opposite in church after church.

Why do I place responsibility at the senior minister’s feet? While it’s true that one person alone can’t create good staff morale, only the senior pastor can block the efforts of others to do so. When it comes to staff climate and maturation, the senior minister functions either like a channel through which attitudes and resources flow, or like a cork in a bottle that restricts the flow.

Wayne Jacobsen, in the Spring issue of LEADERSHIP, accurately articulates the problems of being “Caught in the Middle.” Frankly, I don’t entirely agree with his idea that disappointed staffers’ main options are to pray and be supportive, or leave. But I won’t theorize here what persons “caught in the middle” should do-I’m writing to you, the senior pastor, because you’re the one who can change things.

How? If you’re serious about creating a healthy staff climate and motivating your co-workers, your guiding principle should be, “My primary responsibility is not to tell others what to do, but to create an area of freedom so that each person can be creative and spontaneous. They should do their jobs as they believe they can best be done. The scope of the job plus their professional skills should determine their parameters of freedom.”

“Oh, sure,” I can hear some senior pastors moan. “He doesn’t know my staff! They’re not capable of handling that much freedom.”

If you feel that way, perhaps you need to learn more about hiring capable subordinates. Or, you may feel threatened by subordinates’ strengths and potential accomplishments. But most likely, if you resist these ideas, you simply haven’t been trained to channel people’s abilities, to turn them loose within pre-set parameters.

How? Let me give some personal examples. I was involved in a Chicago parish development project as director. At the beginning, we met as a staff to assign specific responsibilities to each person.

After the assignments were made, others became involved in my personal area of responsibility, but only as my consultants or assistants, and only at my invitation. This worked both ways. I might become involved in their areas, but only as their consultant or assistant, and only at their request.

When problems developed, we would discuss them with gusto in staff meetings. Staff members knew their areas were theirs to manage.

Later, I was invited to take a position with the Dakotas Area Program staff of the United Methodist Church. Before accepting, I met with the other two staff members to establish priorities and assign responsibilities. After two days of hammering out specifics, we listed the necessary staff functions and assigned positions to each of us based on our interests, time, and skills.

Following this, we each developed objectives and programs within our areas of responsibility, submitted them to each other for review, revision, and approval, and then set about to carry out the programs as we saw fit. At the beginning of each year, we’d review our strategy, make new assignments, and develop new objectives and plans,

Bob Paul was director of the staff, but he functioned as a team member. Ron and he voiced strong ideas about what I should do in my management areas. But not once in the years we worked together did they move into my areas of freedom unless I asked them to. I always felt fully supported, never abandoned, and I knew I was responsible for the success or failure of my areas.

This style of management is sometimes identified as “matrix management.” It’s based on the assumption that a professional works best when working in an area of freedom, pursuing agreedupon results. Staff members determine the program to achieve those results, so long as they don’t move beyond the set parameters.

This is a result-oriented approach to managing and motivating a staff. However, if you’re like most senior ministers I work with, you use an activity-oriented approach. You focus on “means,” not “ends.”

George Odiorre in Management and the Activity Trap, discusses managers who are “people shrinkers.” The way they supervise personnel causes their staff to shrink rather than grow.

Persons shrink when they’re not given significant areas of responsibility and the chance to succeed or fail. Any senior pastor who doesn’t want to be a people shrinker would do well to seriously consider the management style I’m advocating.

First, utilize all staff members (and appropriate church committees) to determine priorities. Everyone tends to support priorities and assignments they have helped to determine. Second, assign on the basis of each person’s time, interests, and skills. (Sometimes it’s wise to let people “stretch” a bit out of their “specialist” areas.)

How much freedom can you give, and how much control must be exercised to avoid excessive failure? In struggling with these issues, consider this principle: If you can’t give a professional an area of freedom, don’t hire that person. Rather, hire a nonprofessional support person. (Of course, as much as possible, support persons should be given areas of freedom too.)

I’m often asked by senior pastors, “What can I do if a person abuses this freedom or can’t do the task?” In that case, you can limit the area of freedom, or give the assignment to someone more capable, or even terminate the person’s services.

Now, you may not agree with every aspect of the management style I’m requesting. It’s true that there are many adaptations and approaches which make for harmonious and productive staff relationships. I have no desire to put you into my “matrix” box or to drop a rigid formula on you.

But as a senior pastor, it’s your responsibility to take stock. Are your staff members frustrated? Do they feel disenfranchised? Do you really know how they feel? Are you willing to have them read this article and then ask them?

Motivation? Whatever your management style, it’s all wrapped up in full professional respect for all staff members; and to be perfectly honest, I don’t see it very often.

But I’m hopeful you’re the exception. Or will be

Sincerely,

Norman Shawchuck

P.S. If this just whets your appetite and you want more information, here are four books that can get your juices flowing about putting this into practice: Management and the Activity Trap by George S. Odiorre, Harper & Row; Leader Effectiveness Training, Thomas Gordon, Wyden Books; Organization Styles in Community Groups and Motivation in Community Groups, Jerry Robinson, Jr., and Roy Clifford, University of Illinois; The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker, Harper & Row.