Confused or suspicious of personality questionnaires. This simple overview will help you make sense of them.

As Christian leaders, at some time we will have been in a team where two people never seem to understand one another, perhaps leading to sharp disagreements that affect the atmosphere of the meeting and often the effectiveness of how the whole team relates to one another. They might share the same beliefs and chat together over coffee after church. However, when they are trying to achieve something together in ministry, the team cannot get on with serving others until someone gives way.

These sort of issues within teams, even Christian teams, aren’t really due to the differences that exist between people but the rigidity with which they hold on to those differences. Each has their own way of thinking and working. More than that, they are unable to understand the other’s perspective and are unwilling to change their behaviour to help solve their differences : “I need to understand the detail and until you’re able to give it me I’m not prepared to make a decision about this”

Christian Leaders should be Aware of Difference

Increasing self-awareness of all the team members, their awareness of how each other “works” and the elements of their personality that drive their behaviour, can dramatically improve compatibility between them.  Dramatic improvements in how the team relates together and fulfils their responsibilities take place when individuals understand that there are different ways to think about and approach an issue. Often individuals assume that everyone else in the team does, or should, think the way they do. The understanding of difference is essential to solving your people puzzles and the use of questionnaires to raise awareness and provide a language to discuss issues that arise is a huge bonus.

Using questionnaires to increase self-awareness and create an understanding of personality differences can help team members understand what is happening. Armed with this knowledge, and a little guidance, they can adjust how they work together.

Understanding that Mark is a person who needs detailed information to make a decision means that George can now understand that he is not just being “plain awkward” but that Mark just needs more information than George does. Understanding this need, both of them can work with the situation to get the best out of each other by discussing the level and type of information that is needed. Perhaps Mark felt George was being rash in his decision making as he might have felt he wasn’t aware of all the facts?

These questionnaires provide insight and information so that you can tackle your people puzzles in the same way you would tackle theological or financial problems. Labelled “psychometrics”, they are designed to measure various aspects of a person’s skills, abilities and personality, giving you additional information to incorporate into other insights that have been built up as you relate to people.

Do You Run a Mile From Psychometric Assessments?

So many people run a mile when psychometric tests are mentioned. Maybe they think it’s all hocus pocus or perhaps they are concerned that to rely on their results takes away from spiritual discernment and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in decision making or perhaps they simply are not sure how the results will be used. There are some simple principles to help with these concerns.

Well Scrutinized

Generally these tests are not hocus pocus. The good instruments have been used for a long time, have a large body of data behind them, have been used in Christian contexts and have been rigorously scrutinized for years. The set for which the British Psychological Society provides training is a good guide as to their credibility.  For example Myers- Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is used on many Christian training courses to raise individual self awareness e.g. CWR’s Understanding Yourself, Understanding Others. Claybury use it as part of ministerial training workshops to help ministers understand how their personality impacts their approach to leading others.

Confidentiality

With any such test, confidentiality is essential, particularly in small church communities where it is difficult to keep any information confidential. If they are to be kept in personal records then the individual concerned should be made aware and Data Protection Regulations must be complied with. If the outcomes are shared in a team setting then the team must agree to maintain confidentiality.

Guidance Only

Psychometrics tests should only be used to inform and guide decisions and be an additional source of information in discerning what God is saying to us. Decisions that affect people’s lives should never be made on the strength of psychometrics alone and should always be surrounded by prayer. The reports from psychometrics can be very powerful and provide excellent input to help individuals work out how to develop themselves and to personalize their learning. Claybury use various personality trait questionnaires in supporting various Christian organisations. They are used to assess potential recruits and help them explore elements of their personality during interviews e.g. If the results suggest an introverted personality type is applying for a youth worker role, the interviewer might want to ask for examples and an explanation of how the individual builds new relationships.

Appropriate Use

Such tests are best only used with a trained and qualified practitioner. This goes a long way to ensuring that they are not abused and it enables the individual to receive appropriate tailored feedback and guidance. Look for a British Psychological Society Level B qualification (or your national equivalent). This last point is why it’s best to avoid the “Do It Yourself” on-line tests to be found on the internet. Many of these tests do not have a large body of data behind them nor have they been rigorously scrutinized. That means that you need someone to help sift out the ones that are hocus pocus and some guidance on how best to use them. You will also need help to understand exactly what the results mean for you, without that you could end up following an inappropriate course of action.

Our experience is that the danger is in the misuse of these questionnaires rather than the nature of the  questionnaires themselves e.g. Organisations who have excluded individuals from certain roles based on the results of a questionnaire or where the results of reports have been shared in a team context in isolation from any  other information and without consultation with the individuals concerned.

Types of Psychometric Assessment Questionnaire

Questionnaires and tests come in various shapes and sizes and it’s important that you choose the right tool for the job – Use a plane not an axe to take off that bit of wood from the door that keeps sticking!

Ability and Aptitude Tests:

• Numerical Reasoning Tests: When recruiting, if you want help deciding how good someone will be at manipulating and understanding numerical information, choose a numerical reasoning test.
• Verbal Reasoning Tests: If you want to know if they will be able to understand complex ideas and produce easily understandable presentations you want to use a verbal reasoning test.

Research from 174 studies and 36,000 people reviewed in the American Psychologist journal concluded that higher ability test scores are commonly associated with higher levels of performance in any given role. The key is selecting a test that is appropriate to the role the person will be fulfilling and the context: If you are recruiting for a youth worker you don’t want a test designed for a Treasurer.

Personality Questionnaires:

Often using models developed by leading psychologists such as Raymond Cattell or Dr. Reuven Bar-On, these questionnaires assess the personality that drives the way individuals behave:

• Measures for personal development: Are designed to help you understand and increase your personal effectiveness and that of your team by increasing your self awareness. If you understand what drives your behaviour you are more able to do something about it. They are not designed for, and should not be used for assessment and recruitment.
• Measures for assessment: Aimed at assessing how effective an individual is in comparison to others. They can be used for development purposes but are particularly useful for recruitment and understanding the future potential of individuals.

Some questionnaires help you understand individual behaviour and others how a team works.

Examples of Personality Tests

How can psychometrics help me with my people puzzles?

• As part of recruitment: The most effective way of making recruitment decisions is to use variety: interviews, presentations, ministry based role plays and psychometrics. The decision can then be made on a broad view of the candidate, not just a single criteria or method. If you want to ask the right interview questions use psychometrics to prompt questions that explore someone’s way of working. Don’t wait until 6 months into the role before you discover behaviour that has a negative impact on their performance. Using this variety can also help those you are recruiting to understand if the job is the right one for them.
• As part of individual development and support you offer: This will help raise self-awareness and enable individuals to personalise and apply training. They will also help you to have some of the more difficult conversations about individual behaviour. For example:  to help you work with a team member who fails to understand the impact of their actions on others and how others may be emotionally affected by changes in the organisation. Using a questionnaire can highlight the issue and give you a basis for beginning what might be a difficult conversation and having a more honest and open conversation about the issues and then help you to build a development plan.Claybury have used EQi as part of the coaching support we provide to Christian leaders to raise their self-awareness of how they understand and relate to others and help them address specific relationships issues. Helping them uncover some of the underlying issues and take action to strengthen these relationships.
• As part of team training: Use some of the team questionnaires to help your team understand how they work together as a team and the role they each play in the team, in addition to their job role. E.g. For a church Leadership away day the individual team members complete an MBTI questionnaire before the event and are provided with their own results before the event. Claybury facilitate the event by talking through the MBTI model and sharing the results of the whole team and the implications this has for how they work together. Specific issues are discussed ad how the learning from the MBTI can help them improve how they work together as a team.

Key Learning Point:

As a Christian leader there is no need to be scared of psychometrics:

• They can give you the confidence to tackle some of your people puzzles because they can give you a deeper understanding of your team members.
• They can also give your team members the confidence to loosen their grip on their individual differences that can become a stumbling block to team effectiveness.
• They can help you make good recruitment choices and perhaps enable you to avoid issues in the future.

Psychometric or personal inventories are useful in Christian situations. The secret is to remember that they are simply providing valid insight into people (often ourselves) just as medical measurements give insight into our bodies.  These insights are useful, informative and helpful, but as with everything else, the Christian leader should never use them in isolation. The insights they provide must be considered prayerfully and any decisions must be taken in submission to God, seeking to fulfil his plans and purposes. more »

Imagine that outside your front door at this very moment is everyone who, in the last week, has sent you a text, an email, called you on the telephone, written you a letter, spoken to you about seeing them for a pastoral visit, invited you to a meeting and those you have chosen to spend time with….

How far around your neighbourhood would that queue stretch and how long would it take you to see them if you saw them one after the other, even without a break?

Perhaps you feel overwhelmed by the demands you and others place on your use of time? Maybe the full weight of the issues you face in making the best use of your time are masked by the technology you use to manage your problem or perhaps you are working far too many hours to cope with all these demands on your ministry?

A Time for Everything

The writer of Ecclesiastes 3 v1-6 tells us there is a time for everything, describing the endless ebb and flow of actions that can sweep us up in an endless flurry of activity that leads to stress. There is a time for everything, but that does not mean we have to do everything NOW, as much as we or others might want us to do so. Nor should we simply succumb to all the demands others place on our time. Although we cannot manage time, as we are not in control of its passage, we can manage the way we and others use our own time. As a servant leader we need to role model a healthy use of time for our own benefit and for those to whom we minister.

10 Top Tips to manage your time better

1.  Review how you use your time.

Spend a week keeping a diary of your use of time, (including coffee breaks, telephone calls, travel time etc.) and with whom. Then review the diary, looking for recurring patterns and highlighting where you have not used your time as you would have liked and/or as effectively as you could. E.g. if you split your day into morning, afternoon and evening: do you regularly work all three sessions? Would it help if for all or part of the week you only worked 2 of those sessions per day?

2.  Review your diary with a trusted friend

Discuss the various areas in and then agree to take steps to address a couple of the issues it highlights.

3. Prioritise your use of time.

Steven Covey in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” introduces a simple four box model to help us use our time effectively. On one axis is “urgent” and “not urgent” and on the other what is “important” and “not important”. Our issue is often twofold: firstly, that we spend our time meeting the demands of others in what they see as urgent and important. Secondly, that in failing to deal with the important but not urgent tasks, that the tasks soon become urgent and lead us into feeling and being overwhelmed.

Populate each quadrant of the diagram with your view of what fits where. Next decide, and agree with others what are the important but none urgent issues for you to be an effective leader and resolve to spend most of your time on these. Where would regular hospital visits or home communion come? What about the article for the church newsheet? Personal retreat?

4.  Set expectations

Set expectations about response time and considerations of urgent and none urgent issues. My experience in working with ministers is that when people use the phrase “this needs doing urgently”, this can mean anything from in the next 10 minutes to the next 3 days”. When we and others understand what we all mean we can respond appropriately and prioritise our time effectively.

5.  Take a team approach

Talk to your co-workers about your joint use of time and the challenges you each face and how you can support one another e.g. do we all need to be copied into emails about the redecoration of the church hall? Sifting through which emails to read or not all takes time when we have large numbers of them.

6.  Use Meetings effectively

Do meetings have to happen the way they always have? Do you have to be there for all of the time or just the part that needs your input or when you need to hear vital information? Can other technologies help reduce the time and frequency of your regular meetings? Can you have an on-line discussion of some agenda items before the deacons meeting?

7.  Don’t let technology control you

Take control of the technology. It is easy to respond to the ring of the telephone or the bleep of the mobile phone or the ping of the email arriving in the in box. Turn off the bleep of the email and only check your emails twice a day (see also “Taming the Email Dragon” ). Turn off mobiles during meals, use an answer machine or call divert on a mobile phone when you should not be interrupted. Would we pause in the middle of a conversation with a bereaved couple to respond to a text message? Why do we then allow other situations to be interrupted by the call of technology?

8.  Manage interruptions

Research suggests it takes approximately 8 minutes to recover from being interrupted when you are in the middle of a task. Be ruthless with time, but gracious with people when handling interruptions and try to keep interruptions to a minimum. Find a time and a space where you won’t be interrupted, use technology or another “gatekeeper” to help e.g. your wife. Often when we are struggling with the task we find our own interruptions to distract us from the difficulty of the task e.g. that third cup of coffee, social chat with a colleague.

9.  Avoid procrastination

Procrastination:  “putting off the doing of something that should be done—intentionally, habitually and reprehensibly”. (John Adair). Do the worst jobs first – once you’ve got them over with you will feel a sense of relief and won’t be dreading them for the rest of the day/week. If it’s a big job that you are putting off, break it up into bite size chunks: it’s easier to think of repainting one room in a house than having to repaint the whole house.

10.  Does it have to be me?

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking “If I don’t do it, it won’t happen or be done as well”. Allocate some of your tasks, meetings to others. Might some of them be a development opportunity for others? It may take longer to do this at the outset as you have to explain what is needed but is a worthwhile time saving in the long term.

Reflection

How much of your use of time is driven by your personality and that of others? Do you thrive on being with people generally and certain people in particular? Does sermon preparation get crammed into your remaining time?

Do you have to push yourself to leave the solitude and preparation time spent in the study for pastoral visiting?

Whatever your personality, time spent with a coach reflecting on how our personality impacts on our use of time, supported by the completion of personality inventories that highlight our own issues, can be extremely helpful.

• Commit to completing your time diary
• Set up an appointment with someone to review it together
• Try out one of the tips and see how it works for you: Today!

Image: Alan Cleaver 2000 Flickr.com

For 30 years or more my wife and I have been involved in supporting Church Leaders and churches as they struggle with the stresses and issues of leadership and calling. Over the years we, and the Claybury International team, have come along side both churches and ministers to help them through difficulties, many of which arose because things were not well worked through when the pastor was appointed. So often, that leads to bad outcomes for all concerned.

From our insights I want to share with you 10 mistakes that can be made when a church is seeking a new pastor. I am sure that there are more than 10, but these seem to be the most important. The key, of course, is to be clear about God’s will for your church. The final decision on appointment is one of partnership between you, the prospective pastor and God.

1. Presenting an Unrealistic View of Your Church

Giving your candidate pastors an accurate view of what your church is like is vitally important to both you, and the candidates so that you can make good decisions.

It is a natural human trait to “paint things in a good light” but, in an effort to attract a good candidate, be careful not to make more of your church than you should. Similarly, avoid unhelpful modesty and false humility when presenting your church. You are not involved in a beauty contest but, with the candidate, are seeking to work out God’s will for your church. Trust him, do your best to “tell it like it is” and neither oversell or undersell your church, making it seem more or less than it is.

Giving your new pastor surprises when he arrives is not the best foundation for good relationships as it unnecessarily erodes trust. It can also mean that your new pastor has been mistakenly appointed and is not equipped to handle the specific needs of your church.

2. Falling for the Messiah Syndrome

The Messiah Syndrome is where a church is seeking a saviour rather than a pastor who, after all, is only human. This can arise for many reasons. It means that you need to take an honest view of where you are as a church and identify where the Lord wants you to go next. From there you will be able to discern what your church needs its next pastor to do and to be. The centre of your hope should be God and not him.

3. Failing to Recognise the Kind of Pastor Your Church Needs

If your church needs to develop its depth through teaching, say, and you call a minister whose gifting is not teaching but evangelism or pastoral care then, both you and they will be disappointed.

It is easy to fail to recognise where you are in your development as a church and call the wrong kind of pastor with the wrong gifts for where you are. This is common and destructive.

Don’t simply go straight to seeking your new pastor, take time before God to determine your identity as a church and discover his call for your church. Then you will be able to identify the characteristics that are required in your new pastor.

4. Having Unrealistic Expectations

You can have too many expectations of the new pastor so that stress, burnout and failure is inevitable.

Remember, pastors are only human and by definition are limited in gifting, talent, ability and capacity. Some are pastors, others evangelists, others teachers and so on. There is no such thing as the omnicompetent pastor; each will have their own specific strengths and weaknesses. They can only do so much.

So even if you know what your church needs in its pastor, unrealistic expectations may mean that you will never find them. Then, if you think you have, you will find out differently once their honeymoon period is over. The tensions and issues that will inevitably arise will be helpful to neither party, nor will they honour God.

Take time out to develop realistic expectations.

5. Having Delusions of Grandeur

You may have delusions of grandeur and only want a famous name to lead you. This is the way to miss God’s best for your church.

Finding a new pastor for your church is about understanding and obediently following God’s will for your church rather than following your own ambitions. The only guaranteed outcomes in the Christian life are as a result of obedience to God’s will.

6. Not Supporting Your New Pastor Well

You can fail to put a healthy support package together so that the new pastor may struggle.

There are all manner of issues and pressures that fall on the new pastor and his family, not just when they move in but as they faithfully seek to fulfil God’s call. Working out how to support them is important but the question “Who pastors the pastor?” needs answering.

Also, given the inevitability that the pastor, being a mere mortal, cannot do all that is needed, how will the church cover the gaps? It may be as simple as appointing an administrator; it may mean that someone else in the church with appropriate gifting must step in for particular tasks. This needs to be worked through, because failure to do so can turn, what could have been a thrilling and God honouring period in the life of the church, into time of tribulation.

7. Having Unresolved Leadership Issues

You may not have worked out your leadership team and you may be inviting a pastor into a mess. This is a recipe for continued problems that will not only blight the church but may cause severe grief for the new pastor and may lead to them giving up the ministry all together!

If your church has these kinds of issues, you need to sort them out before you begin looking for a new pastor. It is unreasonable to expect them to clear up your mess. It may be that you need to engage the assistance of a trusted, outside leader to assist you.

8. Generating Theological Conflict

You may not have clearly stated your theological perspectives and this may confuse your relationship with a prospective pastor.

Theological views are part of the Christian’s core belief system and there is ample scope for significant differences. If you end up with a pastor whose core theology is different to that of your church, something will have to give. This could end up being a battle of wills which can become very messy, painful and dishonouring to God. It may set your church and your pastor back by years.

Take time to be clear what your theological perspectives are so that you can declare them to prospective pastors and be able to compare theirs.

9. Lacking Vision and Direction

You may not have a sense of vision and direction so that the pastor knows where you hope to be going. Don’t wait for the new pastor to sort out where God is leading you all.

Armed with this you will be better equipped to identify your new pastor because from it follows the kind of pastor that your church needs. It may be that your new pastor will have to help you work out exactly what your vision and direction means as well as putting it into practice. This, itself will say something about the skills and giftings they will need.

10. An inadequately Considered Remuneration Plan

Be sure to provide a suitable housing and remuneration plan. Be generous, it always works well for the church.

Churches tend to be donation funded and may find this difficult to do but it is a circle that must be “squared”. Inadequately supported pastors are not something that honours God. Such situations heap stresses upon stresses and can make life very difficult for you and your pastor and family.

Resolving this may require a greater commitment from the church and, to this end, a shared vision and direction with the full buy-in of the church will be important.

I trust that these 10 items will be food for thought, will help you prepare yourselves for the pastor that God has in mind for your church and that together you will have fruitful time in his service.

Do You need Further help?

You may also find my book “Freedom to Lead” helpful in understanding the issues faced by church leaders and ministers. Our leadership resources website http://christian-leadership.org may also provide some materials that will be of benefit to you.

If you are seeking a new pastor then our Dovetail service may be of help.

You may recognise some of the listed issues in your own church or, it may be that the relationship with your previous pastor had become difficult. In either case we would recommend that you seek help from an experienced church leader that you trust to guide you through the issues.

The Claybury International team and our associates have come along aside many ministers and churches as they seek to overcome the consequences of ministry meltdown or to work out their vision and strategy. We also help churches with the recruitment and development of their leadership team.

If you feel that we can help you further please call us on +44 (0)1462 600143  or email info@claybury.com

May God bless you in his service.

Colin Buckland

Chief Executive
Claybury International

Image: pellaea flickr.com

This series on stress has been focusing on organisational stress and we have looked at the role that the Christian servant leader has to play by adopting strategies that help reduce stress for the people in his team or organisation. So far we have not considered what you can do if, through reading these articles, you identify high levels of occupational stress in yourself. Colin Buckland shared some more tips with me.

If you are in the ministry or on the mission field you may find this series on ministry stress helpful as well.

Dealing with Occupational Stress for Yourself

So, here are 5 things that you can do to help reduce the impact of occupational stress on your life.

Stress Self Diagnostic

Well, I think the first thing to do is a bit of a self-diagnostic really. You need to start thinking about you. “Are the things we have discussed in this series especially present in me?”

You can engage trusted others with this; your spouse, a close friend, or a near relative who knows you well and aren’t ‘yes’ people. By that I mean they’re not just going to tell you everything you want to hear, but they’re going to give you an honest response… you can ask them. Some times we’ve had leaders go home and ask, “Am I irritable?” And then their spouse would say, “My goodness, I’m so glad to hear you say that, because you’ve been irritable for a long time.” They just haven’t realized.

So, self-diagnostics; don’t just rely on yourself when you do that, but ask these trusted others.

Review Your Workload

When you discover that you are exhibiting signs of stress then you need to start doing something. It’s a bit like you’re burning yourself in a fire, you need to get out of the fire. So, you need to start looking at your workload. “What do I take on?” “What do I say ‘yes’ to?” “What do I say ‘no’ to?”

You could actually start charting your working week, and look at the hours that you do. So, over maybe a two or three week period draw up a table of hours, fill it in. Nobody really likes to do this, but it’s amazing what it can tell you. Over a two or three week period you can look at how much work you’ve been doing. That might be the very cause of your stress; you’re just doing too much.

Establish Good Eating habits

Diet is important. If we eat good food and healthy food that will start to help minimize our stress. (There are lots of good books on this, run a search on Amazon)

Engage in Exercise

One of the greatest stress-beaters is exercise. Learn to exercise. We don’t necessarily have to get a personal trainer who runs us into the ground. Start doing something that raises your heartbeat maybe thirty minutes three times a week. That will make a huge difference to your stress levels. This is a stress-beater.

Develop Relaxation

One other thing that you can do is learn to relax. Several times a day stop what you’re doing, relax. You’ll find that will make an enormous difference to you in your place of work.

You can use relaxation techniques like breathing, and thinking about warming liquid flowing through your body, and so on. There are lots of books that will give you lots of these exercises available in most good bookshops.

There are a couple of devices I could mention to help with relaxation.

One is a simple thing called a stress dot. This is a temperature sensitive dot that you can put on your hand. It’s colour-graded and the more stressed you get the more your body temperature changes and the colour of the dot changes. Your hands begin to get cool. It will show you, really in an instant, how you’re doing. These have been used on school children, to assess the stress levels of children at school. They are very effective so, it’s a good piece of work.

The other device  is a bio-feedback monitor, which looks a little bit like one of those 1960s transistor radios. I remember I used to listen to one of those under my bed clothes at night, just a little personal radio. Well, you get this electrode that you strap on your finger and the device makes this annoying sound. The more stressed you are, the more heightened your system is, the higher the squeal. As you use it you can learn to relax and slowly bring that sound down until it becomes a tic-tic-tic.  What you’re learning to do is relax.

Reflection

The first thing that you can do is that self diagnostic. Consider the symptoms of stress that we have discussed in the this series; do you recognize any of them in yourself? If you do, then begin to work through Colin’s tips.

If your stress seems extreme then of course you should go and visit your doctor as soon as you can as well as take steps to reduce the sources of your stress.

Even if you have not recognized stress in yourself, one day soon it could be there. So we recommend getting a head start, consider your diet and begin an exercise regime. But more than that consider the insights that you have gained from this series and apply the lessons to your work life and your approach to leading your organisation or team.

Image: TheeErin Flickr.com

A Servant Leadership Culture and Style is the Key to Organisational Stress Reduction

As we have seen in the first three articles, stress frequently arises because of the demands that are being placed on staff without a reasonable consideration of their capacity and capability and it is exacerbated when they feel they have no control over their situation. They feel that they are simply Cog-ware, parts of a machine that demands performance but has little care for their well being. The result is stress and with that declining performance.

The best, most productive organizations develop a servant leadership style that is inherently concerned with enabling people to achieve their full potential and in such an environment they do.

The Christian servant leader will be seeking to model a Jesus-style of  servant leadership as they outwork concern for the team members and contribute to their ability to achieve their full potential while reducing levels of stress. The result is an effective organisation even when the going gets tough. This approach is as applicable to church leaders as it is to leaders in para-church situations.

Now, here is the irony of leadership…..

Being so concerned with quality and productivity that the people come second or may be third on the list, results in less than the best in terms of quality and productivity. While, being concerned primarily for the people, working out a style of servant leadership modelled on Jesus, and actively engaging them results in improved quality and productivity.

Why?

Because the people become committed to the success of the team, the department and the organisation.

What aspects of such an anti-stress culture have the most effect on reducing organisational stress? Colin Buckland shared five aspects that you can start implementing today.

Servant Leaders Create a Sustainable Culture

One of the things that is more important than most people realize is the corporate culture; that is to say “it’s how things work around here”. Corporate culture is virtually always driven by the leaders. It starts with the most senior person and it runs through the senior leadership. How they behave and how they respond in certain circumstances will determine how other people will respond.

As an example, let’s say you model starting work at 6 AM and not leaving until 7 PM, taking few breaks through the day. You do it day-in and day-out. You’ve personally got a lot of productivity and you churn out the work. You may enjoy the feeling that somehow you’re a bit of a hero in the organization, but I want to remove that little rug from you and say, “Actually, you are modelling a style that is probably going to be quite destructive for other people.”

Typically, what happens is a leader sets a way of being and the people who report to that leader will begin to emulate that style which cascades down through the organisation. Now bear in mind that not everybody is the same, so not everybody’s got the same capacity for work, or even for stress as you, but they’ll try and be you. So your modelling is enormously important.

Also if we reward people, for example, who work long, long hours, it will go around the organization that long, long hours is what this organisation wants. So, people will start to try and do that. In the early stages we may think, “Hey, this is great. People are really throwing themselves into work.” But this is a false economy, this is not going to last, because a lot of these people are going to burn out and they’re going to get increasingly less productive over time.

The servant leader needs to consider the impact these kinds of dynamics and set about building a sustainable model. That is not about being green, it is about recognizing the culture that the leaders model can burnout the organization.

Servant Leaders Create an Open Communication Culture

First and foremost, as a servant leader you have to engage yourself more with the workforce, because the distance between leaders and workers is sometimes huge. We call it the power-distance ratio.

You know, sometimes there’s a big distance and so you may be isolated from what’s really going on. You won’t really be able to deal with an issue if you don’t know it’s there. All you’ll see is loss of productivity, more absenteeism and so on. It’s not adding up for you. When in actual fact, if you were to start to engage with the people more, you will learn more. The more you develop an open communication culture in your organization, the better that will be.

Part of doing that really means that people are able to tell their managers or indeed you or their leader, exactly what they think and feel without that somehow being considered rude, or a negative practice. So, you need to hear the voice of the people, because they are the soldiers that are carrying out the workload that you’re setting up for them. If you don’t know what that costs them, then you may be the cause of their difficulties and stress. In fact it’s quite possible, that a sole leader, a senior leader in an organization, could be the cause of major waste in that organization, simply by the way they go about their leadership. The root cause is that they don’t engage with the people, they are not being a servant leader let alone showing the concern that would be a hallmark of a Christian leader.

Servant Leaders Get Out Amongst Their People

In one particular case I was talking with a senior leader in Europe who I asked, “When do you get up from your desk and go and walk the halls, and chat with your workers to see how they’re doing?

He said, “I’ve never done that. I never do that. That’s not something that I do.”

And, I said to him, “Well, actually, it’s time you did.”

The story finishes well because he started to do that. The first time he walked into an office everybody stood up and said, “What can we do for you, sir?” That’s because they weren’t used to him turning up. Over time they got used to it. So, now he is able to be alongside the workers and understand what it’s like. It gave them a sense of “We’re all workers here, we’re all doing this together” and that really did help in that organisation.

Developing open communication is a cultural shift. So if you think, “Well, that’s a good idea. Next Monday we’ll do it. From now on, everybody, it’s open communication.” It’s not going to happen. It’s a cultural shift, so it has to happen over time. It begins with all the teams, and all the team leaders, and so on. It begins with you and over time you will develop this and reap the benefits; everybody will reap the benefits.

Servant Leaders Give Appropriate Feedback

Often leaders put staff appraisals low down on their list of priorities because we’ve invested appraisals with a kind of negative face. So, people think, “This is going to be my annual rap over the knuckles,” rather than something positive.

The servant leader can completely rescue that by the way that its done. It’s rescued by entering into a joint discussion about what is a reasonable expectation, and what would help the team member to thrive in this organization. That’s great, but if you don’t do it annually, or whatever the agreed period is, you’re actually harming your people.

It’s not sufficient just to have appraisal meetings but the feedback they provide must be effective. We’ve come across countless situations where a worker is stressed for want of feedback. They don’t know whether they’re doing a good job or a bad job. Interestingly this is further exacerbated by cross-cultural communication.

I’m thinking now of one particular story in Eastern Europe; it was an Eastern European worker reporting to a North American manager.

The Eastern European worker said to me, “I don’t know when I’m doing a good job.” This was a stressor, a major stressor.

He explained, “When I turn in my work if I know in my heart that that’s not a great piece of work… He [the manager] says to me ‘great, great, well done’ – a kind of a high-five scenario, which is foreign to my culture anyway.” He went on, “But then if I turn in a good piece of work, a piece I’ve put many hours into he goes “Great, great, well done” and  high-fives.

This is all “well-done. I’m sure he’s trying to encourage me, but frankly I cannot work out what is good work, and what is bad work, and what the expectations are.”  That was becoming a source of stress for this man.

Effective feedback is essential.

Servant Leaders Give the People their Voice

Giving your people a voice is very much a part of open communication. We demonstrate in the cultural shift towards open communication that we value their point of view.

What that actually means is that stress -the silent killer has its teeth pulled because these people are not then going to suffer silently to the point where ill-health ensues. They’re going to talk to you about their experience of the workload. That’s probably one of the most valuable relationships that you could have with your staff, that level of communication. You see, they’ve got to feel safe for that. It’s really only the leaders that can generate that sense of safety.

What Can You Do Today?

Here we are talking about a process that takes time but it can draw the teeth of stress and have the benefits we discussed in the first article. Your people will be able to achieve their full potential, productivity and effectiveness will increase, staff sickness absenteeism and churn will reduce. It needs to start, so start it today.

• Because people will follow you as a role model, set a work style that is survivable.
• Establish open communication. That’s mixing with your people so that you can get a sense of where they are and they can get a sense of where you are. (You may find thinking on responsible communication skills helpful too.)
• Get up out of your seat and go amongst the people.
• Give the staff voice, so they can express their concerns and in response to giving them voice, ensure that they know they are valued.
• Give appropriate feedback, so that people know when they are doing a good job and when they’re not.
• Generate a sense of safety when they are open with you.

If you want to tread gently just pick one of those aspects and try it out. See what happens. It will take time so keep on keeping on. You can learn more about leadership qualities here

Reflection

Do you engage in these servant leadership strategies? If not where can you start? Make an opportunity to retreat to a park or a country walk for an hour or two and ponder the things you have learned about organisational stress.  Work out how to make a start on one or two of these strategies.

Image: quapan Flickr.com

There is a phrase that always amuses me. It’s “the elephant in the room”.  We all know that it means that there is some big issue that is not being addressed.

Well, organisational stress is most times a silent elephant in the corner of the room. It needs to be dealt with but no one will, and people who are suffering from occupational stress are often the last people to speak up about it.

Why?

Simply put – Fear.

They perceive it to mean that they are not up to the job and that if they speak up then they put their job at risk, because their manager will think that too. This may be entirely wrong but experience shows that often they can be forgiven for believing that staff members may be disposable commodities. It’s not unheard of for organizations to wring their staff dry and then replace them for a new model with more juice. And so the cycle goes on. This approach to leadership is destructive but that is another set of articles sometime……

The Christian Servant Leader and Stress

The Christian leader who is living out the principles of servant leadership should be different, showing  compassion for his people who are under stress. The servant leader needs to relieve the causes because they are reducing the effectiveness of his team. Under such circumstances they cannot achieve their full potential and, therefore, neither can the organisation. More than that, he is modelling Jesus’ style of leadership and that model requires a compassionate response that is sympathetic to an individual’s situation.

It’s worth remembering that these organisational issues are as relevant to churches with team ministry as they are to non-church organisations.

Identifying Organisational Stress

In the first article we mentioned that levels of sickness and absenteeism go up and time keeping, quality and productivity decline. In addition to those symptoms I asked Colin Buckland what organisational factors can indicate that stress may be at work in your team, especially when it’s a silent elephant in the corner of the room……….. eating all the donuts.

Increased Levels of Change

Change is typically very stressful for a workforce. Part of the way of managing change- and this is not often written up by the way- part of the art of managing change is to recognize the stress factors of change that affect an average member of the population.

Change is usually very stressful for people. Some people thrive on it, but by no means everybody. So ask yourself about any change that is taking place, and how far that might be stressing people?

Careless Communication

Ask yourself: “Am I giving out information that is stressful?” Let’s say, for example, your organisation is struggling financially.

What are you doing with that?

Am I saying to the staff, “We’re under threat, we’re under threat”, and then am I hoping that by saying that somehow they’ll work harder?

Typically, what happens is they work less hard without even recognizing it, because their stress levels are climbing. They’ve got their mortgages to pay, their children to care for, they’ve got the car to upkeep; all the expenses of the modern world and the western society. And what you are saying to them is, “It is under threat, it’s under threat.”

Living with that day by day, powerless to do anything about it, that’s extremely stressful.

Not Engaging the Wisdom Pool to Solve Problems

What you need to do in circumstances of the kind mentioned above is to allow the staff in to try to solve the problem. Then they will own the problem along side you and work as a team, they will feel empowered and they’re doing their best to try and save the situation.

It is enormously important to feel like you can at least weigh in to solve the problem.

So, trying to solve that problem for them, without engaging their wisdom, and then telling them how it’s going will only result in increased stress.

I think that we need to use what we’ve been calling the “wisdom pool” a whole lot more. Getting the thinking of the people engaged in solving the problem and not just the thinking of the leader. Do you do that when there are problems to solve?

People Watching – Body Language

One of the things we can do is develop the ability to understand body language.

If, for instance, somebody is wringing their hands and you say to them, “How are you?” and they reply “I’m fine.” Because they are wringing their hands, if you think they’re fine, you’re actually blind. They are showing you in their being that they are not fine.

You can see in people that they’re undergoing heightened levels of stress and tension. When you see people rubbing their necks and rubbing their muscles, what you are seeing is wear and tear, especially if they’re not physical labourers but, they’re working at the computer, or whatever it is, and they’re in pain. It’s not just about the seating that you’ve provided; it’s probably about the stress levels that they are under. So, body language is very important.

Increasing level of “water-cooler conversations”

If you walk the halls of your organization to get amongst the people (I want to encourage all leaders to do that frequently) and you find people meeting around the water cooler or the coffee station more often, in small groups, and seemingly going very quiet when you come along, don’t get paranoid that they’re gossiping about you. It’s usually a sign of being disgruntled about something. And, that’s often about some form of stress within the organization that you’re not noticing and you’re not handling.

As leaders, we need to be vigilant to what we are seeing. Then we need to look for the cause of it, and it’s often work related stress.

Increasing Background Irritability and Emotion

If you or your managers find yourselves hearing more complaints from people over things that actually seem quite small, what you are looking at is organizational stress.

One of the outflows of stress is that people become irritable and are more easily irritated, and so they will complain a whole lot more about things. In fact, you may see the people showing heightened emotions in general; some people may weep, some people may get more angry, and then they storm out. They may answer back very quickly and very brashly. These are all emotional signs that show us that something is not right.

It’s not the people, or that suddenly the people caught some kind of disease. It’s that they’re suffering under weight, and it’s stress that’s doing it.

Reflection

Stop for 10 or 15 minutes and ponder your organisation, department or team. Seriously consider if you recognize any of these things that Colin identified?

If you do, what then?

Take time out to walk around the place and talk with your people to see how they are getting on, what their issues might be. Then read the next article in the ” 5 Ways That Will Help You Reduce Organisational Stress ”

Image: David Blackwell Flickr.com

The Stress/Performance Curve

Stress is part of life and to some extent stress, or at least benign stress (let’s call it pressure), helps to motivate us to perform well. To that extent it can be considered positive.

With too little pressure performance is sub-optimum. Witness the difficulties and boredom generated by too little work as well as insubstantial work that you can’t “get your teeth into”. The problem is that as the pressure increases performance peaks and then declines as the pressure turns to high level stress.

This stress/performance curve almost adds to the idea of being over-the-hill, although in this case it’s not about being “up to it”, it’s about being on that incline that leads to the cliff. It’s about the increasing inability to perform along with declining health brought on by stress.

I almost wrote “declining health brought on by excessive stress” but stopped myself because that seemed somewhat absolute. It does not recognise an important reality. The servant leader needs to keep in view that each individual is just that, individual, different to any one else. The stress that you can stand may wipe me out, or vica versa.

The idea of this stress/performance curve gives rise to the questions “How do I know when things have gone too far? What are the symptoms?” As a Christian servant leader this is an important thing to understand. I asked Colin Buckland about this, here are the insights that he shared.

How Does Stress Work On People?

Overwhelmed by Adrenaline

“Stress effectively is invoking what we call the fight and flight dynamic. This enables us to be energized to withstand and avoid threat, so it’s a good thing. The problem is that if we live in that state constantly, our health seriously breaks down. The reason why people die is that stress has broken down their health to the extent that death ensues.

What happens to us when we enter into a state of stress, regardless of the source, is that we invoke this flight and fight dynamic. This literally pumps chemicals, adrenaline, into our system. What’s interesting is that, thanks to the adrenaline,  people can achieve tremendous physical performances when fight or flight kicks in. We are given almost super human strength by these dynamics, but our system is not designed to stay at that level of heightened capability. It’s a bit like an aircraft or a kite, what goes up must come down. It can’t stay up.

If our stresses are heightened and the chemicals are flushing our system, we can’t stay there, or at least we can stay there, but we shouldn’t. What can happen is that we can develop what is sometimes graphically called “Hurry Sickness”, which is really an addiction to our own adrenaline, or high adrenaline states. The more that you find yourself having to live in a high adrenaline state, the more you will burn from the effects of stress, because your system wasn’t made for that. It’s just not physically good for you.

Cholesterol Retention

When stressed, for some of us at least, our bodies retain cholesterol, we won’t get into that too much in detail now. This cholesterol harms us and ultimately can lead to heart conditions, high blood pressure and stroke. Actually staying in a stressful state, in that heightened state, means that you can retain cholesterol that is ultimately having a negative effect on your body.

Skeletomuscular Stress

Staying in a heightened flight or fight state really places a heavy load on your muscles and your bones.

We often find that people have what we call concrete shoulders, their shoulders are constantly like rock. They are like that because they are held in tension, ready for the fight or the flight, and they find themselves in that condition regularly. That starts to give you strain in the body.

Typically most of our bodies have a weak spot somewhere, so you will find for example that they will struggle with back pain. A lot of the back conditions are as a result of being over stressed, staying in that condition, putting an undue load on the body, and the body reacting and breaking down.

Stress will find your weak spot. People often find that they have terrible headaches and it isn’t because they drank a glass of bad wine the night before, it’s because they are staying in this stressful state and their muscles are stiff and it starts to impact their body.

Increasing levels of illness

Now, over time what can then happen is that your ability to withstand illness declines so that you are actually getting more colds and flu, and even cuts and sores won’t heal. Your body is complaining that it is living in an unnatural place. That ultimately can lead to your death in extreme cases, and sadly there are a lot of those cases to report.

Sleep Problems

Finding it difficult to sleep, or finding it difficult to get up from sleeping is another issue.

People in extreme stress are often accused of being lazy and the reason for that is they say they won’t get out of bed. The psychology behind that is that the moment my toe hits the bedroom carpet the day begins. The longer I can put off the day beginning, maybe the safer I can keep myself.

The truth is that they are in a heightened, stressful state. So not only do they face aches and pains and the loss of the ability to fight off illness, but they struggle with sleep along with getting irritable with people, showing less patience.

Hurry Sickness

Frequently over-stressed people feel like they are achieving a lot when they are really not. This is a symptom of Hurry Sickness which often presents itself as racing around in ever decreasing circles but not really doing very much, and always feeling like someone is going to want something from you. You can find a great article on Hurry Sickness here

Reflection

As a servant leader, the condition of your team members will be of great importance to you.  Take a few minutes to reflect on your team. Do you recognize the symptoms identified above or those we mentioned in the first article in this series?

• Decreasing performance
• Increasing levels of sickness
• Increasing absenteeism
• Increase in staff churn

If you do, it may not affect everyone, because we each respond to stress differently. Try to identify what is causing the stress.

What can you do to help team members who may be exhibiting signs of stress? The remaining two parts of this series will give you some ideas.

Image: JB London Flickr.com

“The truth is we should minimize negative stress in the workplace if we want to maximize productivity. If you really want to get the best with your people, from your people, then actually minimizing work-related or occupational stress is really something worth looking at.” Colin Buckland

Stress and the Christian Servant Leader

A goal of the Christian servant leader is to enable his people to achieve their full potential. One of his enemies in this endeavour is stress because, unchecked it sucks the motivation and energy out of people, leaving them unable to come close to their best.

There is another dimension from the Christian perspective, Paul plainly instructs Christians to deal with each other in humility, with gentleness, consideration and compassion, looking out for each other’s best interests.   In this light the Christian leader has a significant issue to deal with when the people under his supervision become so stressed that they cannot function effectively.  Not only is there a responsibility for the well being of his people, he has a responsibility not to be the cause of the stress in the first place.

It is here that leadership style is important.

Organisationally, the consequence of operating in a stressful environment can be significant and, because organisations are populated with people,  it can arise just as easily in the Christian sphere as the secular. This i9s, therefore an issue for para-church organisations and team ministry churches alike. In fact in the Christian domain there are additional spiritual and material factors at work that can make it more prevalent.

The Organisational Cost of Occupational Stress

Stress dissipates energy uselessly, seizes-up ability and constricts capacity. That is why it not only reduces the ability of staff to perform, and therefore causes an organisation to under perform, it drives up sickness, absenteeism and staff churn. All of this prevents organisations from delivering the goods while driving up costs.

In the Christian sphere, where organisations are heavily dependent upon donors, finances are severely restricted and every penny possible is spent on achieving ministry goals.  This demands that such organisations deliver maximum effectiveness in order not to waste precious and scarce resources. Stress mitigates against this.

The UK’s Health and Safety Executive reported that stress caused 14 million working days to be lost in Great Britain in 2006. In 2009 they reported that over 400,000 people reported levels of stress that made them ill and that 16.7% of the workforce thought that their job was extremely stressful, that’s about 3 people in 20. They estimate that stress accounts for 10.5 million lost working days a year in Great Britain. In 2000 Wheatley reported that 75% of executives say that stress adversely affects their health, happiness and home life as well as their performance at work.

The 10,000 foot view of the symptoms of a stressed organisation are:

• Decreasing performance
• Increasing levels of sickness
• Increasing absenteeism
• Increase in staff churn

There are other symptoms and effects too which will emerge as we work through this series. Besides the obvious productivity and financial costs of stress on the organisation there is a potential legal cost. In the UK, under health and safety legislation, employers have a duty to undertake risk assessments and manage activities to reduce the incidence of stress at work.

The Origins of Occupational Stress

Occupational stress essentially arises under many situations, for example when an individual is:

• Required, or feels it necessary, to perform, in a way that is beyond their ability, capability or skill level.
• Unable to exercise control over a situation.
• Asked to complete an excessive volume of work
• Required to carry out some task for which they do not have the necessary resources to complete the task.
• Faced with the actual or implied consequences of failure. This may be particularly true where vital aid is provided to people in areas such as care, rehabilitation and relief services.
• Confronted with change, even if it is well managed
• Bullied or feels bullied, whether intended or inadvertent, can give rise to stress.

The pressures that cause stress can arise from explicit demands placed on staff or the implicit demands exerted by the force of a manager’s behaviour or the culture of the organisation.

Speaking with me Colin Buckland explains how this happens: “One of the things that is more important than most people realize is what I would call the corporate culture. It is virtually always driven by the leaders, and it starts with the most senior person, and it runs through the senior leadership. How they behave, and how they respond in certain circumstances, will determine how other people will respond.

So, let’s say you model starting work at 6 AM and not leaving until 7 PM, you take few breaks through the day and you do it day-in and day-out. You’ve got a lot of productivity and you churn out the work. You may enjoy the feeling that somehow you’re a bit of a hero in the organisation.  Actually, you are modelling a style that is probably going to be quite destructive for other people.

Typically, what happens is a leader sets a way of being and the people who report to that leader will begin to emulate that style. Now bear in mind that not everybody is the same, not everybody’s got the same capacity for work or even for stress, but they will try and be you. So your modelling is enormously important as is what the company measures.

If we reward people, for example, who work long, long hours, it will go around the organization that long, long hours is what this organization wants.  So, people will start to try and do that. In the early stages we may think, “Hey, this is great, people are really throwing themselves into work.” But this is a false economy, this is not going to last, because a lot of these people are going to burnout and they’re going to get increasingly less productive over time.”

What to do about stress in the Workplace

Plainly high levels of stress are not desirable from either a Christian or an economic perspective. They have the ability to drag down your organisation’s productivity and effectiveness as well as destroy the health of staff.

So what is to be done about it?

There are lots of resources available from organisations such as the UK’s Health and Safety Executive and CIPD (the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development). You can also follow this Creative Leader Bulletin series “Stress – Tips for the Servant Leader” which will answer the following questions about stress, enabling you to reduce and avoid stress in your team to recover and maintain productivity and performance and, identify and reduce stress in your own situation.

• What are the causes, symptoms and consequences of stress?
• How can I identify stress in my organisation or team?
• How can I reduce stress levels in my team?
• How can I identify and respond to my own stress?

Reflection

Take a moment to reflect on what you see in your team or organisation. Do your people seem stressed? Do you recognise any of the factors discussed in this article?

A good servant leadership practice is to get out among your people  and discover how they are doing. This will help you confirm your views about stress in your team.

How do you deal with stress? Do you enjoy it, thrive on it? Are you setting an example that is pressurising your people?

Image: AndYaDontStop flickr.com

“Among all my autopsies (and I have performed well over a thousand), I have never seen a person who died of old age. In fact, – writes Dr Hans Selye in “The Stress of Life”. (Selye was a pioneer in the effects of stress on the human body) - I do not think anyone has died of old age yet.

To permit this would be the ideal accomplishment of medical research . . . To die of old age would mean that all the organs of the body had worn out proportionately, merely by having been used too long. This is never the case. We invariably die because one vital part has worn out too early in proportion to the rest of the body. The lesson seems to be that, as far as man can regulate his life by voluntary actions, he should seek to equalize stress throughout his being!

The human body—like the tyres on a car, or the rug on a floor—wears longest when it wears evenly.”

If stress allowed us to die, perhaps a little sooner but feeling comfortable that we, as a Christian leader had achieved our full potential for God and made a Kingdom difference, then we might think the trade worthwhile. Unfortunately it is seldom so clean and tidy, and perhaps even less so when, well before any part of our bodies give up, burnout’s devastating consequences wreak havoc in the church.

The life of a Christian leader, especially a church minister, is surrounded by more than enough stressors for any ten others. What is more, they are  often unobserved by them, their loved ones and their church board, waiting to strike. This may seem over dramatic but it is oh so real to oh so many.

The aim of this short series is to enable Christian leaders and those around them to be alerted to the risks and consequences of ministry stress and the devastation of burnout that so often follows. The series is adapted and abridged from “Freedom to Lead” by Colin Buckland.

15 Common Sources of Stress in Ministry for Christian Leaders

The first stage of managing ministry stress is awareness, so first I want simply to list some of the most common sources of ministry stress for Christian Leaders. Even as I write I am aware that lists are never really complete and so let me suggest that you add to the list those things that are missing and that cause you to be stressed. Your own list will serve you well as you seek to understand better some of your experiences in the ministry:

When the day is done . . .

The ministry is one of those occupations that does not have a set finish time each day, because the minister is often always ‘on call’. This can be taken to extremes and this never-ending day is a significant source of stress.

I don’t build tables . . .

If ministers did build tables then they would have something to view, a result to see. The nature of being a Christian leader includes not always knowing whether anything has been achieved.

Working with people . . .

This can be highly draining. Christian leaders, especially those in churches or caring ministries, often spend the whole day, listening to, comforting and interacting with people, and arrive home wondering why they are tired.

So, you’re back again . . .

Many Christian leaders enjoy working with people; for some, it may even be the attraction of the role. However, stress can result from having to give time to people who rarely act on the advice sought and just keep coming back for more and more and more of the same advice.

Black holes . . .

Not a plesant description but it is an appropriate graphical image. Stress is experienced in the Christian ministry when never-endingly ministering to needy people, who consume every last ounce of the minister’s time and energy. These people have deep-seated needs and probably require different professional disciplines, but for the good of the gospel, the minister will not stop pouring out their energy.

In the thick of it alone . . .

Another major source of ministry stress is the fact that many Christian leaders work alone, carrying a great sense of responsibility, shouldering the secret stories of the members entrusted in confidence, and feeling the burden of loneliness.

I should have been a fireman . . .

Some Christian leaders enjoy the need to be needed and encourage an ‘I’m always available’ expectation within the community that they serve. Feeding emotionally on the late night calls and the ‘it’s only me’ day-off phone calls is all very well, but the cost in stress is high. The fireman approach to ministry is ultimately destructive to the minister and his or her family. The rush and tear of the ‘emergency minister’ may be intoxicating but is dangerous.

Where he goes, egos . . .

This title stretches things a little, but ministers function in a role that may cause them to have a ‘public face’, the one they wear outside the house to depict their role. Wearing masks in public, while very common, saps energy reserves.

Where should I be now …?

Ministering in one church is stressful but a number of denominations require their ministers to serve multiple congregations. This is enormously draining and can only be survived with adequate personal stress management.

Star Trek makes me cry . . .

A Christian leader attending one of my seminars told me that he had burst into tears while watching his favourite television programme, Star Trek, and did not know why until I had said that ministers are drained of emotional energy by dealing with the joys and sorrows of their members.

A minister can typically be at a hospital bedside in the morning celebrating the joy of new birth with parishioners, take a funeral in the afternoon, and be at an eightieth birthday party in the evening. The swings of this emotional pendulum are exhausting, a vacuum sucking out those remaining emotional reserves.

Not Another Christmas . . .

Many ministers receive great joy from their preaching and from the Christian year, but in lengthy pastorates it can be stressful to continue to minister throughout the year with freshness. Preaching regularly in the same church (some-times twice or three times a week) needs to be understood as energy draining, since each sermon has a huge creative requirement. Many ministers are under stress to continue this level of regular and heavy output.

So, I’m not married . . .

It would be remiss, when looking at ministry stress, not to include the lot of the single minister. Single ministers experience additional specific stressors: Matchmaking – church members believing that they know who would be your perfect spouse!  Also you have more time so church members expect far more from you. In some church settings single ministers are paid less, creating serious ‘worth issues’ for them.

The new kid on the block . . .

High stress levels are experienced when a minister moves to a new church: the sea of new faces, the new expectations, the ‘honeymoon’, the ‘our last minister did it this way’ comments, etc. This complex group of stressors needs to be kept in mind.

From the city to the fields . . .

Any discussion on stress in the ministry needs to take note that changing ministry locations can often mean having to cope with sharp cultural shifts. This is a steep learning curve and it too delivers further stress.

Where will we put the sideboard . . .?

Moving pastorates or mission fields often means moving house. No two ministry houses are the same shape and size. Ministering families often go through high stress trying to make the ‘fit’ into the new accommodation.

The List Goes On….

The list could go on and on and these things don’t look so bad when viewed on their own – just normal stressful dynamics – but it all changes when you string a few together and repeat them week after week. Stressors accumulate and stress continues to exist in our system if no action is taken to alleviate the situation.

Reflection

Find a quiet spot and take a moment to review this list, and anything you have added. Ask yourself, “What steps can I take to reduce my stress levels?”

If you are a member of the church board, take a moment to think yourself into your minister’s situation. How well would you cope? What can you do to help reduce their level of stress?

What Next…..

I hope that you have found this article insightful and a help in understanding the scope and depth of stress that will be encountered in the ministry.

This is the first in a series of four articles that look at how stress leads to the devastation of burnout, how that can be recognised, what you can do to minimise and avoid being brought down by excessive stress and how you can help the recovery process.  This is all grounded in personal experience and many years of supporting pastors in their journey of recovery and survival, backed up by rigorous research into the state of the ministry.

The remaining articles are:

• The Elijah-Decision: When Stress Sucks Away Your Will to go On.
• If I Just Keep Working Then it Will All Go Away:  Responding to Burnout
• “Hoot a Few Hoots Voluntarily, Now and Then”: 15 Things That You Can Do to Reduce Stress

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Image: Jordan Hill School Flickr.com