Church Leaders Admit Top Five Weaknesses

Orginally published on Monday, November 29, 2004 at 8:56 AM
by Todd Rhoades

Thom Rainer is doing some great research on churches and leadership.  Here are bits and pieces of an article by Dr. Rainer just posted on the ChurchCentral.com website.  Dr. Rainer writes, "My research team and I didn’t know what type of response we would get to the question: "What do you feel your greatest weaknesses are in the area of leadership?" Would the leaders of effective churches recognize weaknesses? Would they admit them? Would they be reticent to share their weaknesses if they did admit them?

Somewhat to our surprise, not only did these leaders recognize and admit their mistakes, but they were happy to share their weaknesses with us. If anything, our sense of their comments was that they were too hard on themselves. Sometimes we could not get them to stop talking about their deficiencies.

A majority of the leaders of the churches that reach the unchurched listed 12 weaknesses. The most frequently mentioned weakness may surprise some people, but the fact that it was at the top of the list did not surprise the leaders we interviewed. Let us examine the first five weaknesses mentioned among these effective leaders.

Weakness #1: Pastoral Ministry

Almost three out of four leaders told us their number one leadership weakness was providing personal pastoral ministry. Our definition of pastoral ministry included counseling, doing hospital visitation, and performing weddings and funerals, to name a few of the responsibilities...In our research we discovered that leaders of effective churches spent 10 hours per week in pastoral care while leaders of the comparison churches spent 23 hours doing the same type of ministries...So why did the leaders of the effective churches say pastoral ministry was their number one leadership weakness? The issue, it seems, is one of balance.

Weakness #2: Lack of Patience

The fifth weakness noted by effective church leaders was that they are task driven. We will look at that issue, but first, let?s look at what results from leaders being task driven ? impatience.

More than seven out of 10 leaders indicated they were impatient to see objectives accomplished. Contributing to this dilemma is the fact that most American churches are notoriously resistant to change...The mix of an intransigent church with a task-driven leader can be lethal.

Weakness #3: Dealing with Staff

Most of the effective church pastors we interviewed had at least one other part-time minister on the church staff. Thus, most of the pastors in our study had to deal with staff. And seven out of 10 leaders considered their staff leadership skills to be weak. One of the open-ended questions we asked in our leadership survey was worded as follows: "Name some specific leadership decisions you have made in your church that had a negative impact and result." The responses related to bad decisions with staff were numerous:

"I made some terrible staff choices."

"I did not get involved in staff hiring. It was a big mistake."

"No area of ministry frustrates me more than dealing with staff. I feel so inept."

"My worst mistakes in ministry have mostly been related to issues with the ministry team."

"The two greatest conflicts I have had in ministry had to do with firing a staff member and not dealing with a weak staff member."

Weakness #4: Dealing with Criticism

Though I no longer serve as a pastor of a church, I have served several churches as an interim pastor. In a recent interim I was sharply rebuked and criticized one Sunday. I made some minor changes in the worship service, and a church member, in an emotional outburst, said I had betrayed the church. .

The criticism came in a highly public setting. I think I did a pretty good job of maintaining my composure, and, to the best of my knowledge, I was Christlike in my responses to her. So what is my point?

The criticism bothered me for many days. In my role as a senior pastor of four churches, as an interim pastor of six churches, and presently as dean of a seminary, I have had my share of critics. I guess I have learned to deal with criticism, but I sure have a leadership weakness in that I let it continue to bother me for days, even weeks after the event.

The results of our leadership survey indicate that I am not the only leader who struggles with criticism. Nearly seven out of 10 of the leaders we interviewed noted this issue as one of their own leadership weaknesses.

Weakness #5: Always Task Driven

In our research we saw the self-description of pastors' leadership styles. A clear pattern emerged. The dominant leadership style noted was "task oriented." We defined task oriented as "high interest in production and getting things done."

According to the definition, one might not expect this leadership issue to be a weakness. But the leaders we interviewed spoke of a leadership style that was always task driven, sometimes to the exclusion of relational issues...A task-driven leader is typically a successful leader, so the issue, much like the issue of pastoral care ministry, is one of balance.

What do you think?  Are these the same weaknesses you struggle with day in and day out?  What have you done in your current situation to help you overcome your biggest weaknesses?  I'd love to hear what you have to say...

(By the way, you can read Dr. Rainer's entire article at ChurchCentral.com here. 

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Hi... I'm Todd Rhoades. I'm a Christ-follower, husband, father and I love to connect leaders with other leaders. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step on Twitter.

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