12 Principles of Leadership

Good leaders make good things happen!

What makes a good leader? I am sure no one leader has it all together. I do think the following principles when followed in church pastoral leadership can make a difference. If you have any other principles please post in the comments facility.

1. Eternal Matter: Often church leaders act as if their role is unimportant, at best a short term commitment. Leaders need to be challenged to see their responsibilities as having eternal significance.
2. Lack of huddles: Many church leaders fail to call their team members together on a regular basis. This results in a lack of accountability and follow-through by team members. It is better to have short meetings more often than infrequent long meetings. A good time to have a meeting is around a meal. This saves time and adds a fellowship component to the meeting.
3. Do it all yourself: Poor leaders make the mistake of doing most of the work themselves. They fail to recognise that this is unsustainable on their part and does not build a team.
4. No clear purpose: There are many teams in churches who if asked what outcome they are seeking would struggle to be able to articulate one. Purpose produces commitment and outcomes.
5. No shared vision: Some leaders fail to understand the principle that most people will commit at a higher level to a vision that they have had some part in creating. Leaders need to facilitate a shared vision in their team.
6. Short term view: If a leader is only in the job for the short term then team members will not likely commit. Leaders need to understand that leadership involves a higher level of commitment.
7. Lack of priority: Often inexperienced leaders fail to distinguish between the important items, those things that will really make a difference and the unimportant items.
8. Lack of understanding of human behaviour: Often leaders fail to get team members on board, to attend meetings, and to follow through on commitments because they have not considered human weakness. Most people need reminding, most people perform better when praised, most people are busy and need incentives to make the effort for meetings etc.
9. Too many strategies: Enthusiasm is great but too many strategies at once is foolish. Most of us plan too much and end up with mediocre results.
10. Lack of Empowerment: Some leaders struggle to understand what issues should be discussed by the team and what issues team members should be empowered to deal with. The rule is ‘the bigger the issue the more people need to be involved.’
11. Lack of celebration: Praising team member’s efforts and the celebrating of team successes is often underdone in church life. These things are huge motivators that build team members commitment.
12. Treat differently: If you want leaders to act different from the average church member, to operate at a higher level of commitment then you need to treat them differently from the rest. If team leaders treat team members as important they will tend to treat their job with importance.

In many churches, the lack of leadership is the restricting factor in growing ministry. It is essential that churches have in place an apprenticeship system that grows new leaders. For every new leader you train, you create the possibility of another team coming together to do ministry.