Leader's Insight: Managing Up - Christianity Today

Learning to adapt to and get a better grasp on your leader’s style is difficult, but vital if you want to maintain a healthy working relationship and a fully functioning ministry. Roger Patterson and Mike Bonem are associate pastors at West University Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, and authors of Leading from the Second Chair (Jossey-Bass 2005). Both have extensive experience leading individual ministries within the church, as well as working within the leadership style and vision of their senior pastor. Leadership editorial resident Abram Book asked Patterson and Bonem about the difficulties and rewards of “managing up.”

What clues do you look for to get a better grasp on your leader’s style?

Patterson: Our senior pastor has been in ministry for over 40 years, and he always maintains a strong, healthy, steady pace, but sometimes he is hurried. It is critical that I understand his pace, because then I can discern his stress level and what he may be struggling with.

Bonem: I think another clue that is really important to pay attention to is their preferred communication style. Is it verbal, non-verbal or written? Do they like to sit down and have lengthy meetings or do they prefer quick updates?

When things are going well, how do you build on that relationship?

Patterson: Very few first chair leaders get a lot of affirmation, especially from their staff. A word of affirmation can go a long way. Another important building block is to just spend time praying together. The more that you pour out your heart together to the Lord, the more in sync you’re going to be.

Bonem: I agree. But keep in mind that when things are going well, there might be seeds for problems. One is that the pace tends to increase, there is more for us to do, and we start to focus each on our own areas. Related to that, there is often the idea that the relationship with the first chair doesn’t need to be worked on because things are going well. You run the risk of fortunes turning very rapidly because you’re not working on that relationship. Pride can start to creep in, too.

When things get rocky with the leader, what do you do to try to mend the relationship?

Patterson: How we are wired often gets in the way of being able to see each other’s heart. It says in James, “draw near to God and he’ll draw near to you.” My approach is to draw near. When you can draw near and share from your heart, you’ll often find that your hearts are the same.

Bonem: When things are not going well, there is a tendency to focus on the specific instance or issue, and so you can villainize your first chair very quickly. Stepping back and reflecting on what you know about your leader apart from the immediate situation is extremely important.

Tell me about a time when you learned to “manage up.” How did you adjust to your leader’s style?

Patterson: We recently expanded to two campuses, and so we brought on some new team members. They’re great people, but they’re young in many ways, and they don’t have the history with the senior pastor that Mike and I do. I have had to coach them and train them to understand his style. I’ve told them that the boss’ style is to delegate, to assign something to them and have them report back to him. If he has to come to them for a report, he’s wondering if they’ve done it, and he’s assuming they have. I have also encouraged my team to get things back to the pastor before he asks for them, because I know that is a great way to build integrity with him.

Bonem: When we had our first staff planning retreat after I came on board, we tried to do it my way, and it just didn’t work very well. I am a very structured thinker and I use an approach that starts with the big picture and works down to the details. The first chair is much more “shotgun” and he doesn’t plan things long in advance like I do. We tend to work a lot better if he can run through his list and I interject questions when I sense the time is right. That would not be my preferred style at all, but it is his style and I’ve learned to work with it.

How is adapting to your leader’s style different from adapting to the style of another second chair leader you may work with?

Patterson: I’m 34 years old, and so I’m a lot closer in age to some of the second chair leaders around me than I am to my senior pastor, who is in his sixties. So my relationship with the other second chairs has built more quickly than my relationship with the first chair did when it first began. Yet these younger guys often don’t understand how driven and purposeful I can be, and so sometimes I tend to be more aggressive relationally with them.

Bonem: It’s different in that I don’t really seek to change my leader’s style. For example, he doesn’t give out a lot of affirmation. I don’t try to tell my boss that he needs to be more affirming. When working with others, I still try to understand them and understand their needs and adapt to them, but I also have some expectation that they will try to adapt to my style.

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