As we make our way through the alphabet of the leadership buffet, let’s take a look at the three Cs: Charismatic, Coaching, and Cross-Cultural. Each of these are styles of pastoral leadership that your church may already have or would benefit from. Remember that not every church is alike, so the style of the pastor shouldn’t be a mere cookie cutter version of everyone else. The pastor’s strengths and gifts should match the unique needs of your unique church, then, when the humility factor is laid over the leadership style, the pastor will lead with humble intelligence.
Charismatic
The charismatic leader has the ability to inspire, motivate, or coerce people to action. They possess excellent communication skills, enjoy a bigger-than-life personality, and have abundant charm, which makes them the life of the party. People naturally gravitate to them. The church needs to be careful with a charismatic leader as they can let all the attention they receive go to their head and become coercive, but with the help of the humility factor, charismatic pastors can be effective.
Impact: When the humility factor is added to the leadership style of Charismatic, the humble pastor outcome is that the leader inspires others and keeps their talent for influencing others under control through sacrificial service to others. They are able to avoid the negative qualities of coercion and manipulation often found in this kind of leader.
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Coaching
Leaders who excel at coaching are able to help others find solutions through their skill of asking great questions and being a great listener. Pastors who are coaches will be great at empowering others to do the work of ministry, though some critics may wonder what the pastor is doing personally. These pastors are highly relational, great team builders, and excellent at recruiting volunteers.
Impact: When the humility factor is added to the leadership style of Coaching, the humble pastor outcome is that the leader continually learns from their interaction with those they coach. They become better leaders as they see qualities in others which need to be improved in themselves. Eventually followers see their coach modeling the kind of self-improvement they are being asked to undertake and desire to follow them on the journey.
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Cross-Cultural
The cross-cultural leader has an understanding of various cultures and is tolerant, open, accepting, and agile. They know that an out-of-control ego becomes an invisible barrier to effective partnerships with their community. When this happens, opportunities for connection are lost, which is particularly hard for churches desiring to make a positive impact in their community. This type of leader is extremely valuable to churches within a mixed-culture demographic.
Pope Francis spoke of the biblical mandate that churches have been given to put aside personal agendas, comfort, and status in favor of coming to the aid of the community in which they reside and other cultures, regardless of the boundaries that exist. To do so, leaders cannot begin from a mindset of superiority and hubris, but rather as humble servants.
Imagine the difference it would make in the eyes of the community if cross-cultural church leaders, particularly pastors, demonstrated that they thought no more of themselves than of the people they were trying to reach; if, instead of coming across as a superior group of people reaching down to help the downtrodden, they came alongside equally flawed fellow human beings who were sharing the journey with them. For churches and their leaders to break through the boundaries that separate people from one another, they must follow Christ’s example of taking on the role of a servant by picking up a towel and basin in order to wash the feet of friends, neighbors, strangers, and even those who might wish them harm.
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Impact: When the humility factor is added to the leadership style of Cross-Cultural, the humble pastor outcome is that the leader has a greater ability to see cultures and individuals through a new lens of acceptance, understanding, and compassion. This is appealing to not only followers on the home front, but others whose context of culture is entirely different. When they perceive the leader’s openness, they feel free to develop a trusting relationship with them.
I tell a story about being cross-cultural in my video today. Please check it out at https://youtu.be/nU-E67m-Ncc
Any of the three Cs can be terrific leaders for your church, providing that they also possess humble intelligence. That’s the key. Pastors must show evidence of compassion, sacrificial service, openness, brokenness, self-awareness, forgiveness, and gratitude – the seven attributes of the humility factor.
Next week we’ll move on to a style of pastoral leadership which is less common: Democratic/Participative. Our discussion should be fun!