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When the Church Pastoral Team is Male and Female

An interview with Maria Khaleel, Sarah Stephenson, Kim Sharp, and Charles Arsenault. Women in Ministry recently spoke to these four people who are currently living the dual-gender leadership model. The following is what they shared about their experiences.

WIM: What has your experience been with male-female leadership teams?

Khaleel: I worked as an associate for 6 years with a male senior pastor. I have served as senior pastor for 15 years. Currently, my associates include two males and three females.

Stephenson: I worked as an associate pastor with three different male senior pastors during a period of 13 years. I have been a senior pastor now for 4 years and have a male associate pastor.

Sharp: As associate pastor, I work with a male senior pastor. I direct student sponsorship teams and department heads which include females and males.

Arsenault: I worked as an associate pastor on a staff which also had a female associate.

Now, as a senior pastor, I hired my first female associate 6 years ago. Currently, our staff of eight pastors (full and part-time) includes four women and four men.

WIM: In your experience, what are the blessings of that work dynamic?

Khaleel:Sometimes males and females view things differently. A staff with both men and women allows us to bring different perspectives to issues and to play off of each other’s strengths. Women are often team-oriented and that is my leadership style, so I start from believing that everyone on the team has important things to contribute.

Stephenson: Balance. Definitely balance. But that may be more related to the personalities than the gender. As an associate, I worked with one male senior pastor who was gracious and shared power comfortably. And so we were able to model collaborative leadership in that church.

I’m a very right-brain person and my male associate is a very left-brain person. So, whether it’s a gender issue or a personality issue, we bring balance to the church. And I think that diversity allows congregants to have one pastor they feel they can relate to.

Sharp: Balance. And that’s important in the church because we are ministering to so many fractured families that don’t see healthy male-female relationships. We need a strong male-female ministry model to show them what that looks like.

Arsenault: I have found that my female staff "raise the bar" of excellence. They have consistently been hard workers, good with detail, and also discerning. My experience has been that the staff is stronger and more balanced when it includes both men and women.

WIM: What are the challenges of working on dual-gender teams?

Khaleel: I’ve always had both men and women on my pastoral staff. I haven’t really had challenges that I would relate to the gender issue. There are personality challenges sometimes, but those don’t seem directly related to gender. For example, I’m a very straight forward, strong leadership-style person. I may have a male music staff person who is a sensitive artist-type personality. So I need to deal with the challenge of our different personalities, but that isn’t really related to gender.

Stephenson: As an associate, I found it hard to confront the male senior pastor when some issue needed to be addressed directly. That may have been related to my age or the associate role, though, and not just to gender. As a senior pastor, I’ve occasionally had the experience of a directive not being taken seriously by an associate until I was firm about it. It was assumed that I didn’t really mean it if I wasn’t acting angry.

Sharp: Sometimes communication styles are different between men and women. It takes effort to be honest yet empathetic; it takes effort to not be competitive.

Arsenault: It takes some intentional efforts to prevent outside criticism or suspicions when the staff includes males and females. For example, we have a policy that male and female staff members drive separately to the same event unless they are going as a group.

WIM: Do you have any specific examples of challenges?

Khaleel:If the personality styles of staff members are very different, there can be frustrations in working together. For example, I may need a staff member to finish an assignment in 2 days, but that staff member is a methodical, detail-oriented person who’s going to have trouble getting that done quickly.

Stephenson: As an associate, I worked with one male senior pastor who had trouble sharing power. For example, he would say that I was in charge when he went on vacation, but if a wedding or funeral came up while he was gone, he always flew back into town to officiate at those. Now, as a senior pastor, I may understand that better because of his long-term relationship with those people, but at the time it felt like he was undermining my leadership role. Also, as an associate, I occasionally experienced pejorative humor along gender lines. I have not experienced those challenges as a senior pastor.

WIM: How do you deal with challenges that occur?

Khaleel: When challenges occur, I try to adapt my leadership style to the needs of the staff people I am working with. For instance, in the above example, I feel it’s my responsibility to help the staff member succeed by giving him a deadline or helping him with the work process so he can learn how to meet the deadline.

Stephenson: You need to deal directly with problems. They won’t go away if they are not addressed. You can find and use your own style of confrontation, but you have to communicate directly.

Sharp: I try to keep communicating until challenges are resolved. I try not to think of competing with a male staff member, but rather focus on serving together for the Kingdom.

Arsenault: Communication. You have to deal with issues as they occur. I also try to include spouses and staff families in ministry and social activities. It’s not just the male and female staff members who are important to the church, but also their families.

WIM: What would you do differently if you were to begin again with this model?

Khaleel: I would read and study everything I could about leadership. If you’re going to be leading a team of different personalities, you need leadership skills. I read everything I can get my hands on, but it would have helped to know this before I was in the situation where I needed it.

Also, I would communicate. Always communicate. Give information. Everyone on the staff needs to be heard from. Everyone has something to contribute.

Stephenson: If I were to begin again as an associate, I would try to be more direct and honest in my communication with the senior pastor. I think I was more concerned with “pleasing” than with being honest when I was in a couple of my associate positions.

As a senior pastor, if I were to begin again, I would spend more time asking leadership-related questions before making hiring decisions, such as: How would you describe your personality? What kinds of tasks do you like to spend your time on? Do you prefer to work with short or long deadlines?

Sharp: When I was younger, my communication style may have been perceived by men and women as too individualistic and opinionated. I’m more team-oriented now, and that makes working relationships easier.

Arsenault: I don’t think I would do anything differently. I hire people based on their qualifications, not their gender. Each one is a different personality, but all of my staff, male and female, have strong skills and have always tried hard to work together.

WIM: What would you tell others about this model?

Khaleel: Use it. Both men and women have strengths which complement each other. In our church, we even rotate the preaching among the staff members. That allows people in the congregation to relate to different styles of preaching and different personalities of pastors. It also provides role models for the people.

Stephenson: Don’t waste time feeling threatened or being competitive with the other gender. If you feel threatened, it’s either a real threat and you need to do something about it, or it’s an ego issue and you need to get over it. As I once heard a pastor say, “There is so much good for each of us to do.” When we work together, we can accomplish a lot more of that good work.

Sharp: Realize that men and women have a lot to add to a team. They can do great things together.

Arsenault: Having males and females on staff adds quality to a program. It can be appealing to the church members to have a choice of pastors to relate to. Also, in a church like ours with a lot of students, it provides mentoring opportunities for those considering ministry as a career.

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