I spent nearly 38 years as a leader at a Fortune 50 organization and have been a leader in my church for nearly 30 years. Is leadership in the business world and the church the same? No, not exactly. How are they different and how are they similar?
Qualifications for church leaders (pastors, elders) that are listed in the Bible in 1 Timothy 3:2-7 and Titus 1:6-8, are almost all character traits, with only “able to teach” being a skill qualification. At the same time, many of the elders in our church have been business owners or successful in the business world. So, we have seen that there is a connection between leading in the business world and in the church.
In my book A Leader Worth Following: 40 Key Leadership Attributes and Applications to Master, I look at key leadership attributes that I have seen to be important for leaders in both the business and church spheres. Again, many of these attributes are character traits, working from the inside out.
What are some ways that leadership in the business world is different from that of a church? From my experience, one important difference is that a business leader is often focused on profit, shareholder value and growth. A church leader on the other hand is focused on the spiritual growth of those in their congregation. Church leaders will pray for God’s wisdom as they face challenges.
There are many ways in which business and church leadership is the same. I have seen that both business and church leaders strive to lead with excellence, to do the best job possible. Both strive to maintain fiscal integrity and to run effective and efficient meetings.
You don’t want to lead your church like it was a business, but I’m not sure seminaries in general are adequately equipping pastors to be good leaders, which creates a problem for the new pastor who is expected to not only lead a church, but also a leadership team. One of my pastors has been working on his doctorate in leadership to further his leadership skills to help him lead our church into the future. That same pastor and I led a group of five seminary students through NXTGEN Pastor soft-skill modules on different subjects including leadership, that were not covered in seminary.
What are attributes of leadership that can transition between the business world and the church? Here is a non-exhaustive list of 15 attributes to get you to thinking about this:
- Integrity
- Vision
- Communication
- Developing of future leaders
- Servant leadership
- Humility
- Empathy
- Conflict resolution
- Change agents
- Financial Management
- Strategic planning
- Discernment
- Role model
- Listening
- Team building
What would you add to this list of leadership attributes that church leaders can learn from leaders in the business world?
