Weese and Crabtree, authors of Elephant in the Boardroom, addressed the lack of leadership over ten years ago. Russell Crabtree, The Elephant in the Boardroom: Speaking the Unspoken about Pastoral Transitions (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Succession must be part of an organization's values, vision, strategy and culture.
Next and The Elephant in the Board Room are exceptions to the rule with the intended audience being pastors and leadership. 26. These parameters exceeded the scope of focusing primarily on the influence of the transition pastor on the success of a pastoral transition. Research should be specifically focused on the development of the individual facing transitional leadership.
Pastors who are developing now to become transitional leaders are much more likely to succeed in the midst of the unique transitions they face. Beginning with the writing of Elephant in the Board Room in 2004, the idea of the need for pastoral responsibility in pastoral transition was born.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The desired outcome of the discussion is to discern the characteristics of a successful pastor that have emerged in the current literature. The first is The Elephant in the Boardroom by Weese and Crabtree.9 The second is Next by Vanderbloemen and Bird.10. Russell Crabtree, The Elephant in the Boardroom: Speaking the Unspoken of Pastoral Transitions (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004).
The elephant in the boardroom is one of the first voices to address the issue of pastoral succession. 13 In Part 2 of The Elephant in the Boardroom, the authors offer four church cultures (or contexts) for transition: Family, Icon, Archive, and Replicable. Both The Elephant in the Boardroom and Next call for pastors to lead through proclamation.
In tables 2 and 3, a synthesis of the characteristics of The Elephant in the Boardroom and Next can be seen. Johnson continues the theme begun in The Elephant in the Boardroom: pastoral transition needs to be addressed. Yet the majority of these are not part of the current transition conversation that began in 2004 with The Elephant in the Boardroom.
Two papers worth mentioning that interact with the Elephant in the Boardroom are May (2010) and McCready (2011).
RESEARCH DESIGN
In this third round of research, consensus was found for the last time regarding the definition of the qualities and characteristics of a successful transitional pastor. In Round 3, the same survey was administered a second time, with non-scoring questions excluded. In round 1 of the study, a questionnaire was documented and sent to participants by e-mail.
The purpose of the Likert survey was to measure the consensus on the character and attributes of successful transitional pastors as given by the panel of experts in round 1. 34 Patience to wait for successor development Generosity - willingness to share personal resources to improve the. Expert Panel Consensus Responses, Question 3: What specific personal character traits or qualities enable a transition pastor to be kingdom-oriented.
Expert Panel Consensus Responses, Question 5: What specific personal character traits or qualities in a transitional minister lead to a deliberate philosophy of followership, e.g. The number of participants is 13 for the whole table and the answers in the following table are percentages. Expert Panel Consensus Responses, Question 6: What specific personal character traits or qualities enable a transition pastor to participate in disciple-making.
The results of the study show that 92 characteristics, divided into 5 groups, provide a character profile for a successful pastor in transition.
CONCLUSION
The first of the five themes looked at the general characteristics of the successful pastor in transition. At the top of the list of general characteristics of the successful transition pastor are two characteristics: (1) concern (concern for the good of the church) and (2) willingness to relinquish authority. The kingdom-centered term was one of the character traits emerging from the literature.
The expert panel identified the characteristics of (1) readiness to fight ego and (2) striving for humility as the main priorities of team orientation. These two characteristics reflect the tendency of the expert panel to view followers in two different lights. Interestingly, in light of the very relational definition of student acquisition offered by the researcher, it is very limited.
Of the 27 traits identified in the literature search, 20 were reconfirmed by the expert panel. Sense of responsibility - ownership for the good and the bad 3.23 Patience to wait for the development of the successor 3.23. It is helpful to identify what has not reached the consensus of the expert panel.
The research results of this study call for a refocusing of the conversation around a successful transition. Second, more attention should be paid to the 18 of the 27 100 percent consensus traits that are not in the list of 27 traits. In light of the limited alignment between the character traits in the literature and the findings of this study, the need arises to refocus the conversation around succession.
When looking at the characteristics of the successful pastor in transition, strategies can cloud the conversation and distract from focusing on what is needed. While strategies are necessary and the ultimate application of transitional leadership, this research found that experts left out many strategic characteristics that were not considered crucial to the characteristics of the successful transition pastor. Three characteristics that deserve to be at the forefront of the following conversation are: (1) humility, (2) renunciation of authority, and (3) concern (caring for the church).
In summary, this research has called for a refocusing of the conversation about pastoral succession, particularly in the area of key characteristics of the successful pastor in transition. Two of these characteristics, love for the church and integrity, focus on the inner characteristics of the transitioning pastor.
