Last week Sherry Surratt and Warren Bird were guests on The Spotlight (our monthly webinar series) addressing the topic of Women in Ministry. We had a lot of participation, and several questions that we didn’t get to during the webinar, so I asked Sherry if she could answer a few more for our readers.
How does a woman's workplace background influence her perspective and behavior in ministerial leadership? A great question! I find a woman's workplace background does influence her in her ministry leadership position. With our executive pastors, some of them have business backgrounds where it was common to work amongst a male staff. They are often more comfortable and confident in doing so in their ministry position. Many women have told me that they were caught by surprise when met with gender bias issues in the church that they had not encountered in the business world. It left them perplexed and unsure of how to proceed. As with men AND women, we tend to carry our experience and learnings from past workplaces into our current situations, and with women they tend to carry their expectations of relationships with co-workers, supervisors and team members along with them. One female executive pastor said she learned that the only constant that she took with her when she left the corporate world to begin her pastoral position was Jesus. The rest was all new!
How does criticism by the women they lead affect the longevity of women in leadership roles, and their effectiveness in ministry? Is there a difference compared to male leaders? Because positive relationships are so important to women, it sometimes makes us more vulnerable to criticism and negative reactions to our leadership. But I also see this in men as well. I think the difference in personality might have more of a bearing than gender.
Can the women who have 10 plus years mentored those who have 1-5 years of experience? I love this question! I think this is the most important thing women leaders can do to impact the world of leadership. Share your knowledge and experience! We need wise, experienced female leaders to invest in our younger leaders and a great way to do this is to invite them in to invest in you. Pick something you'd like to learn from them (i.e. technology or what they reading) and ask them to share. See what you can learn from them and ask them if there's anything you can share. Nancy Ortberg said it well when she pointed out that for older, experienced leaders, our job is to let the younger, inexperienced generation stand on our shoulders, giving them the better view and ask them to share with us what they see.
If you missed the webinar, you can download the recording and slides from the presentation.
Next month, Wed. Mar 10, The Spotlight is on Churches that Serve. Be sure to register and save your place on The Spotlight!
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Stephanie Plagens is the Publications Manager for Leadership Network.
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