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Effective Ministry Leaders are Solution-Focused

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Hannibal leading his army through the Alps on elephants, dramatic snowy mountain pass, Carthaginian soldiers, towering war elephants, cold misty atmosphere, ancient historical scene

Hannibal was the brilliant Carthaginian general who famously led his army—including war elephants—across the Alps to invade Italy during the Second Punic War. When told it was impossible to successfully invade Italy from the north, he is quoted as saying, “I will either find a way or make one!”

The first leaders I interacted with were not generals but pastors. My dad was a pastor. His closest friends were pastors. I saw them communicating to large groups and caring for individuals behind the scenes. I listened to them discuss future direction and daily decisions. I observed them casting vision, raising funds, training staff, and overseeing construction projects.

Pastoring, leading a local congregation, may be one of the most complex leadership challenges imaginable. The vast majority of congregations have just one paid employee, the pastor. This means most of the work is done by volunteer staff. These same volunteers financially support the individual that they have invited to lead them.

All of this assumes a congregational expectation that the pastor is a leader. In some congregations, having a pastor act as a leader is neither expected nor accepted. These congregations much prefer their pastor to function as a chaplain more than as a leader.

Yet, the pastor must lead. No one else has the calling, training or time to focus on the breadth of the church’s ministry on a daily basis. All of the volunteers have expertise in something but none of them has 50 hours of time set aside each week to understand and process the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that form the congregation’s ministry context. The pastor must lead.

That does not mean the pastor is smarter than anyone else on the team or is always right just because she has a seminary degree. It does mean that the pastor cannot abdicate the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that the church accomplishes its God-given mission.

Any church that is serious about its mission will encounter problems. Even the church in the book of Acts experienced conflicts and challenges. Some of the best opportunities to develop as a leader come when the organization is faced with unforeseen difficulties.

Dr. Laurel Buckingham, my mentor and friend, captures the essence of this solution-focused leadership with this axiom: “As the leader, I am responsible for finding the solution to the problem, whether I caused the problem or inherited it.”

The leader who accepts responsibility avoids slipping into a “victim” mentality. Consider the other alternative. The leader who says “I am not responsible” is also saying “I am not the leader.” It is far better to accept more responsibility for the problem because in accepting that responsibility with I am accepting the opportunity to lead the team forward to finding the solution.

The best leaders are more concerned about fixing the problem than on fixing the blame. This pastor understands that finger pointing or playing “the blame game” is an unproductive use of emotional energy. Even if the 100% of the blame could be tracked down and laid at the feet of some individual, not one step of progress has been made toward resolving the problem.

This is not to deny that there is an appropriate time for post-op debriefing and clear-eyed evaluation. There is value in gleaning lessons for future improvement from the pain of our failures. But the wise leader avoids the trap of believing that finding a scapegoat is fixing a problem.

The key to this principle is accepting responsibility for finding a solution. Accepting responsibility is an incredibly empowering position. This perspective grants the leader the freedom to avoid being the blame detective and allows her to move into the creative zone of being a solution engineer.

The pastor exercises leadership by moving the team, starting with himself, from focusing on the problem to finding a solution. The leader energizes the team to get the facts, weigh the options, and agree upon the optimal solution. Then the leader mobilizes the team and points the way forward with bold and consistent action to implement the agreed-upon solution.

Effective pastors accept responsibility to lead their team in finding solutions to problems.

Lead Like Wesley

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What values and behaviors did John Wesley expect of his leaders? How did those expectations shape the Methodist movement? John Wesley provided clear direction for his itinerant lay preachers through the “12 Rules of a Helper” that he first shared in 1744. This version of the rules is from John Telford’s The Life of John Wesley (Hodder & Stoughton, 1886), available online at the Wesley Center at Northwest Nazarene University.

1. Be diligent. Never be unemployed. Never be triflingly employed. Never while away time, nor spend more time at any place than is strictly necessary.

2. Be serious. Let your motto be, ‘Holiness to the Lord.’ Avoid all lightness, jesting, and foolish talking.

3. Converse sparingly and cautiously with women, particularly with young women.

4. Take no step towards marriage without solemn prayer to God and consulting with your brethren.

5. Believe evil of no one unless fully proved; take heed how you credit it. Put the best construction you can on everything. You know the judge is always sup­posed to be on the prisoner’s side.

6. Speak evil of no one, else your word, especially, would eat as doth a canker; keep your thoughts within your own breast till you come to the person concerned.

7. Tell every one what you think wrong in him, lovingly and plainly, and as soon as may be, else it will fester in your own heart. Make all haste to cast the fire out of your bosom.

8. Do not affect the gentleman. A preacher of the Gospel is the servant of alL

9. Be ashamed of nothing but sin; no, not of clean­ing your own shoes when necessary.

10. Be punctual. Do everything exactly at the time. And do not mend our rules, but keep them, and that for conscience’ sake.

11. You have nothing to do but to save souls. There­fore spend and be spent in this work. And go always, not only to those who want you, but to those who want you most.

12. Act in all things, not according to your own will, but as a son in the Gospel, and in union with your brethren. As such, it is your part to employ your time as our rules direct: partly in preaching and visiting from i house to house, partly in reading, meditation, and prayer. Above all, if you labour with us in our Lord’s vineyard, it is needful you should do that part of the work which the Conference shall advise, at those times and places which they shall judge most for His glory.

“Observe, it is not your business to preach so many times, and to take care merely of this or that Society, but to save as many souls as you can, to bring as many sinners as you possibly can to repentance, and, with all• your power, to build them up in that holiness without which they cannot see the Lord. And, remember, a Methodist preacher is to mind every point, great and small, in the Methodist discipline. Therefore you will need all the grace and sense you have, and to have all your wits about you.”

“Lead Like Wesley” is available on Amazon / Kindle: