Two-Faced Leadership – Don’t Be That Pastor

The episode explores the critical importance of authenticity in ministry, emphasizing how being two-faced can lead to a loss of trust in leadership. The conversation revolves around the need for consistency between public preaching and private actions, fostering a culture of honesty, and the role of accountability in church leadership.

• Defining what it means to be two-faced in ministry 
• Examples of inauthentic leadership behaviors 
• The necessity of consistent messaging in leadership 
• Cultivating an environment of truth and honesty 
• The role of accountability partners for leaders 
• Importance of being real and vulnerable with teams 
• Encouragement to reflect on and ask for feedback about one’s own authenticity 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

All right, today we're going to talk about something we all know exists in ministry, but we don't always address it at all. It's the issue of being two-faced, and who better to introduce us to this topic than good old Abraham Lincoln? A quote that Lincoln once said at least it's attributed to him. Lincoln once said if I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one. Hopefully you get the joke there. If not, send me an email, I'll try to explain it to you. Now. I don't know if Abe was roasting himself or just proving that he had a little bit of a sense of humor, but his words do highlight something that's really crucial for church leaders, and that's authenticity. And in ministry, being two-faced saying one thing and living another is not just bad leadership, it's actually spiritually destructive. So we're going to dive into that how not to be a two-faced pastor or a church staff member today, right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name is Todd Rhodes, I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and I'm so glad that you are watching or listening today.

Speaker 1: 1:15

Now, when we talk about two-faced in ministry, what do we mean? Okay, here's what it can look like, a few examples for you. Okay, it could be saying what people want to hear, but you're doing something else behind the scenes. Okay, have you ever had a leader promise transparency and honestly, only to keep staff meetings full of secrets? That's two-faced leadership. Right, maybe it's preaching grace publicly, but privately you're leading your team with fear. If your sermons are filled with love and compassion, but your staff walks around on eggshells around you, there's a disconnect and, if I can be blunt, you might be a two-faced pastor telling one thing to the congregation, telling another thing to the staff. Nothing kills trust faster than a pastor or a church staff member who tells their people one version of a story and another group of people another version of a story. If you're a senior pastor, if you're telling your elders one thing and you're telling your staff something different, if you're leaving out specifics for the staff, you will get a reputation as being a two-faced pastor. If you're expecting accountability from others but you're avoiding it yourself, yeah, ouch, right. If we're going to hold others to a higher standard or to a high standard, we need to live by that standard ourselves. No exceptions. That's leadership, my friend, and ministry is already full of challenges. Don't add a credibility crisis on top of it. Your team and your church and even your own heart will suffer if you're known for saying one thing and doing another, and sometimes we don't see this in ourselves. Right, it's the old take the log out of your own eye or the speck in the log. Sometimes we don't see it.

Speaker 1: 3:29

So ask yourself regularly am I the same way in private that I preach in public? And if not, of course, correct it. But don't just ask yourself. Ask those around you Say do you see any inconsistencies in what I'm saying and what I'm doing? And if you ask that question to the right person, you're going to get a straight answer.

Speaker 1: 3:53

And you need to be brutally honest with your team. If hard news needs to be shared, share the hard news and do it with integrity. Don't sugarcoat it, don't go around it for one group, don't change the tone for another. I understand you've got to communicate things differently to different groups of people, but you have to be honest and, particularly when it's hard news, you need to do it with integrity and you need to model what you would expect from others. If you want your staff to have work-life balance, for example, don't work yourself into a tizzy and work yourself into the ground and expect them to do the same.

Speaker 1: 4:35

You need to encourage this culture of truth, and it starts with you. If you're the senior leader, it starts with you. If you're a staff leader, you're volunteers, it starts with you. Surround yourself with people who will call you out if you start to slip into inauthenticity. You need to have people around you that don't fear you, that people that will actually tell you what you need to hear. And a good accountability partner or a good leadership team can save you oh, they can save you tons of problems, tons of oh, tons of grief from becoming a two-faced, from getting this two-faced reputation, if you just have people around you that will speak into you. So here's your bottom line your team and your church. They don't need a polished version of you. What they need is the real you. They need to see your flaws Now, hopefully, your good stuff is better than all of your flaws but they need to see the real you. So you need to be the same person in the pulpit and in meetings, and at home and in private. You just have to. It's that kind of leadership that people follow and it's the adverse kind of leadership that people will run away from.

Speaker 1: 5:51

I'd love to hear your story. Have you ever worked with a two-faced leader? Have you ever worked with a two-faced leader? Have you ever worked under a two-faced leader? Maybe it's now. Maybe you have a horror story from the past. Maybe you've had a moment where you've realized that you were the two-faced leader or you were slipping into something like this yourself.

Speaker 1: 6:07

Shoot me an email. Every email you send me. I read every one of them. They're all completely private, completely confidential as well. You can email me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. I read every single one of them and, hey, if your church is struggling with leadership authenticity or you are, chemistry staffing can help. Maybe you're looking at hiring the right people, developing a healthier staff culture. This is the work that we've invested our lives in and we would love to come alongside you, if God would have that, to partner with you, to help you to become a healthy staff or to find a healthy staff member. You can always email me and just ask me, tell me what's going on and I'll see if there's any way that we can help. You can reach out to me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. All right, thanks for hanging out today. It always means so much to have you listen or watch, and my admonitions for you today as we leave. Stay real, stay honest and have a great weekend. I'll see you here on Monday. Have a great day.