Religious Priests/Pastors
OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to examine the leadership practices of a select group of Filipino American pastors.
METHODOLOGY The sample consisted of 18 Filipino American pastors, from about 60 who were asked to participate (from a population estimated at 80). The typical pastor was 55.6 years of age, had been pasturing for an average of 10.9 years, and came from a variety of language groups. The congregations studied averaged about 75 members in attendance; with about 63 percent working adults, 26 percent children and teens and the remaining retired men and women. The average church in the study had been in existence for 15.6 years. The Leadership Practices Inventory was completed by the pastor and the LPI-Observer form by 8-10 members of their congregations.
KEY FINDINGS Constituents rated their pastors consistently higher on the five leadership practices if they were the founder of the church versus those who were not; although the rank order of the practices was the same. Encouraging and Enabling were the two most frequently engaged in leadership practices, followed by Model, Inspire and Challenge. The Self scores were consistently lower than the constituent scores but roughly in the same rank order.
The author taught a seminar on The Leadership Challenge for a Fil-Am church in the Chicago area, and used the LPI, making the congregation a “pilot group.” He concludes that “in teaching some of the concepts of The Leadership Challenge it became evident that the basic concepts were easily grasped by the lay leaders (men and women) who were participating as observers in the pilot study. The pastor involved readily agreed that the thirty leadership behavior descriptions were appropriate measurements of his pastoral leadership” (p. 4).
“The Fil-Am pastor needs to work harder on the leadership practice of challenging the process. There may be a connection between these lower scores and the small size of the Fil-Am church” (p. 94).