Training Leaders in Another Culture

Foundation for Pastoral Leadership

1. Personal Foundation
2. Know yourself
3. Know God
4. Know your calling
5. Know your job
6. Know your people
7. Know your work
8. Know your position

Nature of Leadership

1. Leadership: recruiting, training, motivating, deploying, and supervising a group of people to accomplish a specific task that they would not otherwise have done together
   1. Recruit
   2. Train
   3. Motivate
   4. Deploy
   5. Supervise
2. Aspects of leadership
   1. Vision
   2. Pastoral care
   3. Management
   4. Energy
3. Cultivate team character
4. Develop team members
5. Motivate by the gospel
6. Decision-making styles
   1. Autocratic
   2. Consulting
   3. Democratic
   4. Consensus
   5. Laissez-faire

Responsibilities of a Leader

1. Maintain the values of the ministry
2. Maintain the vision and purpose of the ministry
3. Make Decisions
4. Communicate
5. Execute
6. Take Responsibility
7. Persuade, don’t manipulate
   1. Persuasion: changing people’s hearts and minds so that they want to do something different
   2. Manipulation: getting people to do something they don’t want to do
8. Stay focused

Nature of Training

1. Purpose of training: to develop specific skills and abilities
2. Process of training: practice and instruction over a long time
   1. Teach
   2. Demonstrate
   3. Observe
   4. Evaluate
   5. Encourage
3. Challenges
   1. Desire and Conviction
   2. Knowledge and Ability
   3. Evaluation and Confrontation
   4. Context for TDOEE
   5. Time
4. Teaching is not training
5. Understand gifts and limitations
6. Demand excellence
7. Hundreds or thousands of repetitions
8. Success: able to execute the skill with excellence

How do we train people in a culture different than ours to recruit, train, motivate, deploy, and supervise others to accomplish a mission?

Cultural Issues

1. Communication: High-context, low-context
2. Leadership: Egalitarian, Hierarchical
3. Decision-making: Consensual, Top-down
4. Disagreement: Confrontational, avoidance
5. Evaluating: Direct, indirect
6. Trust: Task, Relationship
7. Local rhythm of life
8. Local learning styles

Cross-cultural Leadership Training

1. Requirements:
   1. Situation that enables TDOEE
   2. Time
   3. Communication
2. Connect with local institutions and leaders
3. Spend time with the people
4. Ask questions! Lots of questions.
   1. Which sports do you follow?
   2. How do you do ____?
   3. What happened there?
   4. Why did you do ____? Why did he do ____?
   5. What is the meaning/significance of ____?
   6. etc.
5. Use local illustrations
   1. Learn about local news and issues
   2. Avoid offensive language and issues
   3. Qualify any U.S. illustrations
6. Ask local contacts to identify key issues
7. Fit into the local rhythm (calendar)
8. Imitate the style of local training events
9. Eat the local food, go to local events, ride local transportation
10. Training Staff in Mexico
    1. Week-long visits (Teach)
    2. Observe staff lead (Observe)
    3. Preach and teach occasionally (Demonstrate)
    4. Diverse engagement: campus, church, seminary, pastors, friends, family
    5. Go to Lucha Libre
    6. Invite to U.S. training events
    7. Debrief all events (Evaluate, Encourage)
       1. How did it go?
       2. What happened there?
       3. Why did you do ____? Why did he do ____? Why did I do ____?
       4. Did I commit any cultural faux-pas?
       5. Did people understand my teaching?
       6. How could I connect better?
11. Training Events in Mexico
    1. 3-hour time shift
    2. Topics chosen by local staff
    3. Events arranged by local staff
    4. Simple vocabulary and syntax
    5. Conference speaker
    6. Bible study, personality, leadership, etc.
    7. Do the Karaoke
    8. Debrief all events

Bibliography

Culture

• Hooker, John. Working Across Cultures. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003.
• Mayers, Marvin K. Christianity Confronts Culture. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1987.
• Meyer, Erin. The Culture Map. New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2014.
• Storti, Craig. Americans at Work. London, UK: Intercultural Press, 2004.
• Storti, Craig. The Art of Crossing Cultures. Boston, MA: Intercultural Press, 2021.

Leadership

• Friedman, Edwin H. A Failure of Nerve. New York, NY: Church Publishing, 2017.
• Hyde, Douglas. Dedication and Leadership. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966
• Lencioni, Patrick. The Advantage. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2012.
• Lencioni, Patrick. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2002.
• Peters, Thomas J. and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. In Search of Excellence. New York, NY: HarperBusiness Essentials, 2004.

WTS Fellows Program
May, 2025