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Leadership skills are a key ability for parish clergy. As good stewards, we want to use our leadership skills and develop them. There are times, however, when we can overuse those skills for our own needs rather than for the benefit of the community or the Gospel. The following are ways that we can over-lead:
1) Intruding, unnecessarily, into conflicts between parishioners. Having the Incumbent involved can turn small level conflicts into a "federal case".
2) Over programming. Program needs to be developed in a consultative and a considered way so that the activities do not overwhelm the resources of the parish, particularly in small churches.
3) Over steering. It is important to keep a light hand on the controls, particularly when everything is going well. We need to affirm others in their delegated ministries but not be continuously looking over their shoulders or second-guessing their decisions.
4) Dominating. Healthy lay people will want to be convinced that a new idea has a benefit to the community or to the Gospel. Sometimes leaders will initiate change as a test of loyalty or authority. The best authority is convincing, informative and collegial.
5) Engineering Outcomes. Sometimes goals become so important to leaders that they operate behind the scenes for a given outcome rather than working by clear information and due process.
Sometimes individuals have the leadership skills beyond what a particular community can absorb at a given moment. Fortunately, clergy also have the outlet of using their leadership skills ecumenically, in the Deanery, in the community, and in the wider church. It is appropriate for a clergy person to give a tithe of their working time for this wider ministry.
When we exercise leadership, it is good to ask whose interests are a priority in all of this?
Like tennis, good leadership is the judicious combination of forcefulness and restraint.
Item 74
©2006 Ronald C. Ferris
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