Pastor coaching involves several elements that I have found to be important. And I have found that every pastor is different – some needing emphasis in one area, another in another.

Assessing Individual Leadership
I have found, after years of doing counseling, and now doing executive coaching, that accurate assessment is a critical first step. When assessing the pastor, I am interested in several things: his emotional makeup, his temperamental makeup, and his leadership capabilities and challenges. For each of these areas I use a different assessment tool. What is important to is to obtain a useful profile from which an individualized program can be constructed to guide the coaching process.

Understanding Organizational Complexity
Seminaries often have not been good at helping pastors understand the multiple ways in which organizational life (and in this case, the life of the church) unfolds, and the various pitfalls that await the uninitiated. The church offers to the pastor an organization that has distinctive characteristics (e.g. a volunteer organization where those working for the organization are also members of the organization, but consider themselves family members of that organization).

Clarifying Issues and Defining Priorities
75% of solving a problem is first framing the problem correctly. If a problem in understood incorrectly, solutions applied will not only not solve the problem, the solutions themselves will become problems. One pastor I worked with explained how his board refused to give him a 2% pay raise, though he had researched in meticulous detail for his denomination, pay scales as per seniority and geographic location of church. All the explaining and cajoling in the world would not move his board.  He saw the problem as one of inadequate information ("I must supply them with the data so they can arrive at the right decision"). After we talked awhile, I came to see the problem as a reflection of the condition of the board (Many board members were losing or in fear of losing their jobs. There was a great deal of economic uncertainty, and giving the pastor a raise, when they might have no income, made no sense).

Creating Focus for Action
Once the problem is correctly understood, then strategies for action can be constructed. This is the fun part, developing strategies to deal with a rightly-understood problem. Often the strategy is mundane (You need to go to her and confront her on this issue) to the complex (The church culture will not support such an idea unless a great deal of ground work and buy-in is first established).

Developing Individual Coaching Skills to use with Subordinates and Team Members
I also teach pastors how they themselves can become coaches to the subordinates who work under them. After a certain time of coaching a pastor has elapsed, I offer the as an option where the pastors themselves are supervised to be coaches. During this supervision, pastors discuss the issues that emerge from their own coaching participants (often fellow staff members), with specific feedback and guidance. Upon successful completion (twelve hours of supervision, and twenty-four hours of coaching), participants receive an "Executive Coach" certificate.

This was taken from a full article written by Dr. Jim Osterhaus. Dr. Osterhaus is a consultant for TAG, a research and consulting firm headquartered in Fairfax, VA. He has consulted with dozens of pastors and churches around the country, and has taught and spoken at schools conferences around the world. The ideas and concepts presented in this article are attributed to the entire TAG team. Jim can be reached via e-mail at josterhaus@877tagline.com.