Written by: Stefania Tarasut on November 8, 2013

When you pick up Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice your fist though is “how am I going to get through these 800 pages” but as I started reading, I was slowly pulled into every article. There was something I could glean from every page and I felt as if I was not only affirmed as a leader, but also pushed to be better in the way that I lead my congregation. No, this book is not written from a church perspective, but I think that the church has a lot to learn about leadership from the business world.

Let’s start by defining what a leader is and what leadership looks like. We’ve heard it said over and over again “Leaders are agents of change.”[1] As broad and as cliché this saying is, after reading through this book, I feel there is a lot of substance to that statement. Leaders are usually “persons whose acts affect other people more than other people’s acts affect them”[2] I think about my leadership as a pastor. People share their burdens with me, and I walk with them through life’s most difficult challenges, but I don’t make their issues my own. I carry them, I pray for them and I weep with them, but at the end of the day, their issues don’t change the way that I live and lead. I might be a little more sensitive and aware, but my core doesn’t change based on what’s going on around me. It sounds heartless, but it’s not. Imagine feeling everything deeply and imagine attempting to alter my life based on church members circumstances. I would be of no use to anyone.

“The leader that always appeases is like someone who feeds crocodiles hoping that they’ll eat him last.”[3] It’s hard to stay strong and have a soft heart in leadership, but I think that we must live in the tension… For example, a pastor is a friend to those in the congregation, but they are not his friends… soo much of leadership is somewhat one sided. Leadership occurs when we are willing to live in that tension between being fully in and aware of everything that’s happening in your congregation and having one foot out so that you might be able to be objective in the way you interact with people.

“Great leaders inspire people to move beyond personal, egotistic motives- to transcend themselves as it were- and as a result they get the best out of their people. In short, exemplary leadership makes a difference, whatever the context”[4] Leadership is leading by example. It’s doing the dirty things so that others might be empowered when they see you work alongside them.

“Leadership involves plumbing as well as poetry.”[5] In the Korean community pastors are treated like royalty. They are put on a pedestal and are treated with an incredible amount of respect and admiration by the first generation. Sometimes I think that the pastor is up there with Jesus… but it’s not the same with the second generation. They look at the pastor and can’t understand why he is given soo much respect just because he is the pastor. The title alone earns you respect with one generation, and it means nothing to the second. It’s pretty fascinating. I earned the respect of my congregation by doing the plumbing… and now they listen to my poetry. Poetry standing alone has no power, just like plumbing alone is just hard work. Leadership, when done right, it’s a beautiful dance… it’s plumbing and poetry dancing together.

About the Author

Stefania Tarasut