Leadership Style and Teaching Orientation of Pastors of Solo-Pastor SBC Churches

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to analyze the relationship between the leadership style and teaching orientation of a random sample of pastors of solo-pastor churches in the SBC. The leadership styles that were analyzed were autocratic leadership and democratic leadership, as identified by Lewin (Lewin et al. 1939; Bass and Stogdill 1990). The teaching orientations that were analyzed were pedagogical orientation and andragogical orientation, as identified by Knowles (Knowles 1984; Knowles et al. 2005). This study was designed to clarify and build upon the findings of previous researchers who have examined the relationship between leadership and teaching (Ang 1984; Mattia 1991).

This research was descriptive in nature. It used a one-phase, quantitative, correlational study model (Gall et al. 2005; Leedy and Ormrod 2005). Consistent with this type of research design, the aim was to collect data pertaining to both pastors' and congregational members' perceptions of pastoral leadership style and teaching orientation, in order to better understand the extent of the relationship between the dimensions of leadership and teaching.

Specifically, through this study, the researcher sought to determine whether leadership style and teaching orientation were dependent variables, independent variables, or just related characteristics of individuals who practice both leadership and teaching. While this research study did find that a perceived change in one dimension (either leadership style or teaching orientation) did correlate to some measurable perceived change in the other dimension, the researcher concluded that leadership and teaching were largely complementary pastoral competencies, and not strictly corollary; meaning, the relationship between leadership and teaching was best expressed in quadrants, and not on a strict continuum. This research did not assess adequately whether or not a solo-pastor could either be a leader without being a teacher, or be a teacher without being a leader.

The findings of this study offer limited support for two theoretical models: Situational Leadership Theory (Hersey and Blanchard 1995; Hersey et al. 2001) and Staged Self-Directed Learning (Grow 1991). Additionally, based on the findings in this study, the researcher proposes a theoretic model of Cross-Perceptual Teaching.

KEYWORDS: ADLS, Andragogical, Autocratic, Congruency, Democratic, EDQ, EOQ, Knowles, Leadership Style, Lewin, Mattia, Molero, PADLS, PLTOQ, Pedagogical, RBLS&TOQ, Situational Leadership, Teaching Orientation.