When Your Senior Pastor Doesn't Actually Lead

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, Todd Rhoades addresses the frustration many church staff members face when their senior pastor fails to make decisive leadership decisions. Todd explores reasons for this leadership gap, such as burnout, insecurity, and lack of systems, and offers practical steps for staff members to address the issue constructively. • Senior pastors sometimes fail to make critical decisions, leading to frustration among staff. • Reasons for this include burnout, insecurity, and lack of leadership systems. • It's important to acknowledge the problem and communicate with the senior pastor constructively. • Define decision-making authority clearly to avoid confusion. • Stop enabling indecisive behavior and allow the pastor to feel the responsibility. • Assess if continuing in the current role is sustainable if the situation does not improve.

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Transcript

When The Pastor Won’t Decide

SPEAKER_00 0:07

You're in your Monday staff meeting in church, and there is there is a decision that needs to be made. Maybe it's about budget or direction, maybe about a difficult personnel thing, and your senior pastor says, What do you guys think we should do? Again, for the third weekend, and you realize he's not gonna decide anything. He's gonna wait until somebody else steps up, makes the call, and then he'll either affirm it or stay silent. And you drive home that afternoon carrying a weight that isn't technically yours, but somebody's gotta carry it. It's the frustration we hear from a lot of candidates in our work at chemistry staffing.com that says that my senior pastor just can't lead, he can't make a decision, and it's really frustrating to staff people. So maybe you're a staff person and you feel this way about your senior pastor. We're gonna talk through that, some of the frustrations and some of what you can do today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Thanks for joining me. My name is Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffing.com. All right, first, let's actually name what's happening here because this, whether you like it or not, is your reality. If this is going on in your church or in your life

Why Leadership Drifts

SPEAKER_00 1:28

right now, okay? Let's start here. Your senior pastor has the title, but you don't think he's leading. He's not cruel, he's not lazy. Maybe you'd say he's a smart guy, he's not incompetent. He's just not present in the way that the leader needs to be present. He's not the leader that we need right now. Maybe he's emotionally checked out, maybe he's burned out, maybe he's delegating without really any direction. Maybe he's afraid of conflict. There's so many things that could be going on here. Maybe afraid of conflict and avoids decisions altogether. Maybe he's so focused on Sunday that Monday through Saturday just seem like adrift. And here's what happens you find yourself stepping in, or at least wanting to step in, because you feel like somebody has to. So you make the call, you set the direction, you manage the tension, and slowly you realize you're functioning like the leader, but without the authority or the title or the emotional margin to really sustain it. So this happens a lot in churches over time. So why though does this happen? How do senior pastors drift out of leadership? Like I said, a lot of different reasons. Sometimes it's burnout. Maybe they've been running hard for years and they just hit a wall. They're still showing up, they're still preaching, but honestly, the tank's a little empty everywhere else. Sometimes it's not burnout at all. Sometimes, honestly, it's insecurity. They're afraid of making the wrong call, so they make no call. They'd rather let the team collaborate on its own, a decision that might backfire. Sometimes it's just a lack of systems. They've never built the muscle of leading a team. Maybe they started when the church was smaller and it's quadrupled in size, and they've never ever led a church this size with multiple staff, and they just don't know what to do. And there's no systems to help back them up. They can cast the vision from a stage, but they can't translate that into any kind of Tuesday morning clarity. And other times, honestly, it's just comfortable comfort. They get comfortable, they found their lane, preaching, teaching, be in the face, and everything else just feels like somebody else's job. Now, most senior pastors who do this aren't trying to abandon their team. It might feel like it, but most of the time, they're not trying to abandon their team. They're just either overwhelmed or they're unsure or they're unaware of the gap that they're leaving.

Five Steps To Respond

SPEAKER_00 3:59

So what do you do? What do you do? First, name it without shaming it. And this is this is tough stuff. This is tough stuff, but you can't fix what you don't acknowledge. If you're carrying leadership that isn't yours to carry, you need to say it out loud, at least to yourself and maybe to a trusted advisor or a coach. Don't spiritualize it, don't excuse it. Step one is just to name it. Step two is where you take it a little bit deeper. You have the conversation. Again, sometimes in some church cultures, risky, but you need to have the conversation if you're going to be able to even attempt to try and fix this at all. Have a conversation, not in frustration, not in a public staff meeting, one-on-one with the pastor, with care, with honor. Hey, I notice that a lot of decisions are landing on my plate, and I want to make sure that I'm stepping in where you want me to and not overstepping where I shouldn't. See how that disarming that is? Give him the chance to clarify, give him the chance to own it or to adjust. And you'll be surprised how often senior pastors don't even realize that the gap is there that they've created. So that's step two. Step three, define that decision-making authority. Get some clarity however you can on what decisions are yours, what decisions are his or hers, senior pastor, and what decisions are collaborative. Without that clarity, you'll keep guessing, and guessing is gonna wear you out. It's not about control, it's about stewardship of your role and the senior pastor's role. And then step four, stop rescuing when you should be redirecting. If he's pruning decisions to avoid discomfort, stop catching them every single time. Let him sit in the tension long enough to feel it. Now, you're not being disrespectful if you do this. You're refusing to enable a pattern that's hurting him, that's hurting you. And yeah, it's hurting the church. And then lastly, number five, decide what you can and decide what you cannot carry. If the gap isn't closing, you need to accept assess your situation. Can I keep doing this? Not forever. Not God will give me the strength. Can I, as a human being, sustain this pace? And if the answer is no, you need to either renegotiate your role or start planning your exit. And there's no shame in that. There's only wisdom in that.

The Bottom Line And Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 6:32

So here's the thing you need to hear. You're not responsible for your senior pastor being a leader. Okay? You can support, you can invite, you can clarify, you can create space, but you cannot force someone into a role that they're unwilling or unable to fill. And if you keep trying, you're gonna burn yourself out. Not because you're weak, but because you're carrying what was never meant to be carried by one person. You're carrying the senior pastor's role and your role. Leadership vacuums never ever stay empty. Somebody always fills them. The question is: should it be you? And if it is you, for how long? If you're willing to be miserable for the sake of the mission will make you miserable. Patrick Lincioni says that. That's what's happening here. If you're trying to hold it all together and it's costing you more than you realize, you might be in trouble. This is not about being disloyal. It's about being honest. And sometimes the most loving thing you can do for your church, for your senior pastor, and yeah, for yourself, is to stop pretending that the gap doesn't exist. Here's your bottom line for today. You can't lead for someone who won't lead. And trying to will eventually break you. Listen, you're not crazy for feeling like this. As I said, we hear this quite often from candidates that we talk to. They're frustrated, they're hurt sometimes. You're not crazy for feeling like this, and you're not being disrespectful for noticing it. You're being honest, and that's the first step toward health. So, my admonition to you today is keep leading well, keep honoring your role, but don't keep carrying what isn't yours.

Email Feedback And Closing

SPEAKER_00 8:18

If you'd have any feedback for me on today's podcast or just the podcast in general, reach out to me. Podcast at chemistry staffing is my email address, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. And I'd love to hear from you. I read every email that comes in and respond to every email as well. So I'd love to hear from you. Podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right, that's it for today. We'll be back here tomorrow. Hope you'll join me for another episode. Tomorrow will be episode number six hundred and seventy-five.