You make many decisions independently. No, dithering isn’t good. But bosses who make all of their own decisions without speaking to others are asking for trouble. How much do you ask for others’ input?
You can’t remember the last time you spoke to a customer. Failure to discover what people think about what you offer is not only foolhardy, it’s a recipe for failure in the future. If you think you’re “too busy” to connect with customers, that’s a warning sign.
You always have lunch with the same people. Socializing only with select peers cuts you off from people who might offer alternate views.
Your team always seems to agree with you. If no one has contradicted you in a while, you may have inadvertently created a no-bad-news culture. Surrounding yourself with people who can only do one thing — nod — is an invitation to disaster.
When something goes wrong, the first thing you ask is, “Who’s responsible?” This may be a sign that you overemphasize accountability at the expense of problem-solving — which your team may see this as finger-pointing.

Some of these are applicable to pastors, but I would also add the following pastor-specific warning signs:

You dismiss criticism as personal dislike. Well there can’t possibly be anything wrong with my preaching or pastoring, can there!
You start shortening prayer time because you have so much ministry to do. In fact you can go long periods of time without a breath of prayer heavenwards.
You no longer need to read your Bible for yourself. I mean I know it so well now anyway.
You don’t listen to your members’ views on any text. After all, they don’t have Hebrew or Greek, do they.
You resent the twice-yearly meeting with the elders charged to oversee you. What impertinent questions they asked the last time about my internet use. And imagine counseling me to avoid visiting single females alone! What kind of man do they think I am?
You threaten to resign if you don’t get your way. They need me far more than I need them.
You stop visiting your flock. After all, that’s really for the deacons. Surely I’ve done my stint of hearing about Mrs Moaner’s hip replacement and about Mr Payne’s arthritis.
You stop evangelizing: That’s for the young people.

Collins regards self-confidence as vital for business success. But his basic message is that “too much confidence is a toxic cocktail that can lead to a very long hangover.” That’s where pastoral ministry differs because self-confidence in a pastor, even to a small degree, can be disastrous.

So what are the remedies? Well let’s start with the business culture’s solutions. John Baldoni offers these:

Start by asking people to talk back. Employees need to be able to tell their bosses what they really think. Bosses who make people uncomfortable about telling the truth are asking for trouble. They end up sandbagging reality.
Make time to walk the halls, talk to customers, and speak with vendors.  Use your own “walk the beat” approach to finding out the truth.
Remember that once your stakeholders start talking more openly, it’s your job to listen.

Although some of these are a bit “business-speaky,” they can translate into church-speak. But I would also want to add:

Seek and welcome accountability. From your wife and from your fellow-elders. And when choosing accountability elders, don’t choose the ones most like yourself.
Resist every temptation to regularly shorten personal Bible reading and prayer.
Visit, visit, visit. Pastoral visitation and involvement in the messiness of people’s lives keeps our feet (and our knees) on the ground.
Cross, cross, cross. I heard Don Carson deliver an exegetical lecture at a seminary about 20 years ago. I had just started Greek and could understand little of it. However, he said one thing I’ve never forgotten:   “No man can think himself big or make himself big beside the cross.”
Cultivate and maintain a close and lively walk with Christ. Our ministries are not so much about communicating principles and precepts, as they are about communicating a person. And that person described himself as “meek and lowly in heart.” Whatever else our ministries communicate, let them communicate that. Because that is powerfully attractive and effective. And safe.

Put their self-interest in front of their institution or organization
Bill George, Harvard Business School

Betraying trust
Evan Wittenberg, Head of Global Leadership Development Google Inc

Being certain. Why bother when you know!
Ellen Langer, Professor, Harvard University

Not to live up to their own values.
Andrew Pettigrew, Professor, Sïad Business School, University of Oxford

To be so overly enamoured with their vision that they lose all capacity for self-doubt.
Gianpiero Petriglieri, Affiliate Professor of Organizational Behavior, INSEAD

Personal arrogance and hubris
Carl Sloane, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School

Acting too fast.
Jonathan Doochin, Leadership Institute at Harvard College

It’s all about the leader and also not being authentic, consistent and predictable.
Scott Snook, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School and retired Colonel, US Army Corps of Engineers

Not being self-reflective.
Daisy Wademan Dowling, Executive Director, Leadership Development at Morgan Stanley

The common thread running through these responses is the danger of pride or over-confidence. I’m going to look at this more closely tomorrow, especially in connection with pastoral ministry.

The pastor’s worst enemy is pride, and it is a special danger for young pastors (1 Tim. 3:6).

The Particular Causes of Pride

• Public gifts. As your gifts are exercised in public (unlike those with more private and unseen gifts and ministries), they are more likely to be recognized, admired, and praised.
• Official status. As many of God’s people respect and honor the “office” of pastor (sometimes regardless of who fills it), you may be inclined to think it is you they respect and honor.
• Man-centeredness. When people are blessed under your ministry, they will often attribute it to you rather than to God.
• Worldly ideas of leadership. You see yourself as “in charge of all these people,” rather than their servant.
• Inexperience. The Church is quite unique in how it places untested and inexperienced young men into positions of the highest responsibility without going through the “humbling school of hard knocks.” Having never been led, they sometimes do not know how to lead.
• Misunderstanding of call to the ministry. Paul did not see the pastoral ministry as a prize he had earned. For Paul, it was as much a grace, an unearned gift, as salvation (Eph. 3:8).

The Pastoral Consequences of Pride

If you fall into pride there will be serious consequences in your ministry.

• You will start depending on your gifts rather than on God.
• You will become impatient with your less gifted brethren in the ministry or eldership.
• You will become thoughtlessly insensitive to the traditions and customs of the past.
• You will resist personal criticism and mature counsel.
• You will become discouraged and discontented because “I deserve better than this crowd!”
• You will regard yourself as above the small/dirty jobs in the congregation.
• You will stop learning because you know more than everyone else anyway.
• You may fall into the “condemnation of the devil” (1 Tim.3:6).

The Personal Cure of Pride

Let these two phrases be the double heartbeat of our ministries.

1. I am a sinner

• Remember what I was (think on the sins you’ve been delivered from)
• Remember what I could be now (if God had not stopped you)
• Remember what I still am (research your own heart )
• Remember what I could yet be (if God removed His restraining grace)

2. I am a servant

• A servant of God (not independent but dependent on God for commission, authority, blessing)
• A servant of God’s people (not their lord or sovereign)
• A servant of sinners (do not look down on the unsaved but get down on your knees for them)
• A servant of servants (don’t compete with other pastors but serve them)
• A servant of the Servant (who said, “I am among you as one who serves,” and, “the servant is not greater than his Master.”)

Picture: 2005 © James Hearn. Image from BigStockPhoto.com