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Running head: LEADERSHIP PROFILE
Leadership Profile Paper: The Reverend William M. Englund
Nina Englund
University of St. Thomas
Summer 2015
Running head: LEADERSHIP PROFILE
Leadership Profile of Reverend William M. Englund
Upon graduating from Hamline and working as a music teacher at a local high
school, William found the job to be very unfulfilling. After a few years passed in
teaching and traveling, he found himself being called to the seminary. He had been very
active in church with his family as a boy and young adult, and this seemed like the next
career path for him. His strong religious ties and beliefs affirmed his action to serve
others while serving the Lord.
Reverend William M. Englund is currently the senior pastor at the First Baptist Church in
lowertown Saint Paul. His service at the church has spanned over 25 years, with his first
Sunday preaching from its pulpit occurring in 1990. The church looks much different
now than it did back then. The church is located in what used to be an old warehouse
district and forgotten part of the city. Although the building has remained the same, the
outside landscape has changed along with the inside demographics of the congregation of
followers that has grown immensely over the years. Much of this change is due to the
leadership of (how his followers address him as) “Pastor Bill.”
Lowertown Saint Paul is now a thriving hub with restaurants, ample green space,
a new baseball stadium and access to the light rail. The warehouses around the church
have been torn down or renovated into condos and the neighborhood has been revived.
First Baptist Church is amidst it all. The previous congregation was primarily comprised
of older members of the church with little room for younger growth in numbers. Now, the
congregation is comprised of many people from Refugee Camps on the Thailand-Burma
border. This cultural group is known as the Karen. These members of the congregation
have used the church as a place of worship and a site to be educated United States
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customs. Pastor Bill has sought out ways to help these newly arrived refugees by offering
the church as a place to seek support and preparation for a different life from their
homeland.
Not only is he a pastor, but he is also a father, husband, and an activists, where he
demonstrates leadership as head of a family and out in the community. He is very
important to me because he is my father, giving me to ability to have insider knowledge
and accounts of his leadership at work for over 30 years. He is not just one specific type
of leader, but encompasses many different types of leadership styles including the role of
a servant leader, an authentic leader, and a leader that follows the path-goal theory, all of
which will be addressed in this paper. My dad continually works to serve as an effective
leader through various examples of his actions towards his family, his congregation, and
his community. It is a privilege to be able to write about such a person as a beacon of
light in leadership. The paper begins by addressing how my dad (Pastor Bill) is a servant
leader and how this is reflected in his leadership actions and behaviors.
The Servant Leader
Much of the work of the clergy aligns with that of the profile of a servant leader.
It comes naturally as part of the job expectation to be successful in the field to be
attentive to the needs of followers, empower them, and help them develop their human
capacities (Northouse, 2015). Thus identifying the leadership style that resonates the most
with Pastor Bill and his engagement with followers is that of the servant leader.
Greenleaf (1970) provides a definition of this leadership as:
[Servant leadership] beings with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. The conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead…The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first tomake sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served.
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The best test…is: do those served grow as persons; do they while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likelythemselves to become servants? And what is the effect on the leastprivileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived? (p. 15)
Pastor Bill attempted another profession and decided he wanted to serve others not in a
teaching capacity, but as a religious leader because he himself felt compelled. This was a
not forced upon him, but a “natural feeling” as Greenleaf describes it.
Spears (2002) comprised as the first model of servant leadership with ten
behaviors from Greenleaf’s writings to include listening, empathy, healing, awareness,
persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of
people and building community. The behaviors focused on in this section are empathy,
healing, foresight, stewardship, commitment to growth of people, and building
community. Empathy is best described as “standing in the shoes” of someone else. Pastor
Bill demonstrates empathy to the Karen people in his congregation as they arrived
recently to the country by providing them with inclusive language in church services. He
thought about the language barrier of the English language for many of these people and
being in a new and foreign land. As a result, created a space for Karen translations of the
scripture during the Sunday services to be inclusive to their native language and hired a
Karen Associate Pastor to co-lead services. Pastor Bill is also committed to being
empathetic, but also to helping people heal.
Healing is about making people feel whole. At home, he offers many kind words
of support and encouragement to his family and showers them all with hugs and kisses,
and isn’t afraid to talk about feelings when a conflict arises and someone feels hurt.
These signs of affection indicate his compassion and the providing of the emotional
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support necessary for a healthy family. His identification of the need for emotional
healing demonstrates how he cares deeply about the personal well-being of followers.
Helping others heal also creates space to see the good in what can happen in the future
instead of leaving people hurt.
Foresight is about being able to know what’s coming based on the past. By
forming personal connections with followers, Pastor Bill can better predict the future and
help to accommodate follower’s needs. Pastor Bill has started English language and
citizenship classes to educate the Karen. Through these acts, it is evident that Pastor Bill
thought about the implications for the future lives of the Karen in Minnesota. They lived
much different lives in the recent past and Pastor Bill works on altering the outcomes for
the future by providing resources. Providing foresight in resources, like help with
language and citizenship, also lend themselves to the behavior of stewardship in a leader
taking responsibility for followers.
Stewardship is about the servant leader accepting responsibility, but also holding
the organizations in which they work in trust for the greater good of society (Northouse,
2015). Pastor Bill assembled a missions committee at the church that prepares welcome
baskets filled with rice cookers, sheets, blankets, and essentials for newly arrived refugee
families once they arrive at the church. Upon arrival, a basket is delivered to homes and
an invitation to worship at the church is given. These actions demonstrate the outpouring
of resources to help followers become members of society that can be positive
contributors in less time by extending a hand of stewardship. The welcome baskets help
families get on their feet and acclimate to a new life by providing something very small.
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Pastor Bill also helps his own family with physical, as well as personal resources, when
discussing the behavior of the commitment of growth of people.
The growth of people is about helping each person grow personally and
professionally (Spears, 2002). He makes sure the needs of his family are met both
physically and emotionally. He has worked to maintain a steady income and keeps food
on the table, as well as a roof over his family’s head. He, with the help of his wife, also
selflessly afforded the opportunity for all three of their children to attend college debt
free. He has wanted his family to benefit from opportunities to grow and provided the
essentials for life in hopes that by providing college opportunities this could also lead to
professional growth. Growth takes on many forms and can relate to the community
outside of just the people.
Pastor Bill extends his servant leadership outside of the doors of the church into
the lowertown community. He recognizes that building community is important and
sometimes that means starting with physical space. Community is a place that people can
feel safe and connected with others (Northouse, 2015). He is an active member on the
Capitol River Council, which is a volunteer group that meets monthly to discuss and
make decisions that directly affect the surrounding neighborhood of the church. Being a
member of this group, Pastor Bill most recently served to help beautify the neighborhood
to make it more welcoming and inviting, helping design parks and green spaces. He is
currently on a committee working on the Saint Paul River Walk. This is a new idea that
would create space to enjoy the river and the city, while at the same time being eco-
friendly. This service to his community is to help others enjoy the beauty of the city and
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he is actively involved in decisions that bring benefits to places that have been deprived
or unrecognized in the past.
The lens of a servant leadership is complex and focusing on the majority of the
defining characteristics that Spears identified captures Pastor Bill in this style. Servant
leaders are helpful to remind followers that they are not alone and someone is always in
the ring fighting for them, willing to sacrifice themselves before others. It is a very
selfless form of leadership that does not leave much room to dwell on the leader’s own
problems or issues, but instead to focus all the energy outward for the good of others.
Followers search for a leader who is deemed as honest and good in whom they can trust,
in both styles of servant and authentic leadership. In the practical approach of authentic
leadership, it is about trusting the external expression of what is going on internally with
the person in the leadership position.
Authentic Leadership
Authentic leadership is a newer area in research and is quite popular at the
moment. There are two approaches to authentic leadership. The practical approach, which
evolved from real-life examples and training and development literature; and the
theoretical approach, which is based on findings from social science research (Northouse,
2012, p.197). This section of the paper will look at how Pastor Bill is an authentic leader
following the practical approach, according to the characteristics determined by Bill
George.
George (2003) describes authentic leaders as having genuine desire to serve
others, as knowing themselves, and feeling free to lead from their core values. The five
characteristics are understanding their purpose, having strong values about the right thing
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to do, establishing trusting relationships with others, demonstrating self-discipline and
acting on values, and staying passionate about their mission (p. 197). Understanding their
purpose means leaders know where they are going and are inspired intrinsically by their
goals. An example of this is when Pastor Bill planned a trip to visit Thailand to travel to
the camps to see where many members of his congregation had lived before traveling to
the United States. He understands the importance of knowing where followers are from
and by traveling to be fully immersed in the culture. This trip lead to the intrinsic reward
of being able to better relate to followers and move the church to a more inclusive model,
bringing cultures, religion and people together as his purpose for serving at the church.
The second characteristic is having strong values about doing the right thing. This
is a lesson he taught to his children by role modeling. As a father, Pastor Bill would
continually take his children to volunteering experiences at places like the Dorothy Day
Center and Family Place to help feed people in need. By being an active participant in
these service activities, it relayed the importance of helping others who are less fortunate.
This is what Pastor Bill believes is the right thing to do. Doing the right thing also plays a
part in establishing trusting relationships with others because followers trust those who
they see continually do the right things.
Establishing trust in any relationship has to be earned, not given, or it fails to be
genuine. Trust is about allowing one to be guided by feeling supported as a whole person.
Pastor Bill establishes trust in relationships by leading followers on canoe trips in the
Boundary Waters. He took numerous groups, from church members to family trips,
where their lives depend on his leadership. Each person in the canoe with him is trusting
he will steer them to safety and relies on him for the essentials to live, like food, water
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and shelter while miles away from civilization in the wilderness. Individuals surrender
everything to him for safe passage and return on these trips where they may have little to
no survival skills. He has built rapport and trust enough in these followers from his own
expertise and experience in the Boundary Waters and from the many successful trips
already achieved. These trips also demonstrate self-discipline and him acting on values
measured by their success.
Self-discipline and acting on values create focus and determination. Northouse
(2015) also states that this can give authentic leaders energy to carry out their work in
accordance with their values. Currently, Pastor Bill is in court representing the church in
a Right-Of-Way (ROW) Assessment. He strongly believes it is wrong to charge a non-
profit church the same as it would a for-profit organization for the amount of land that it
covers in Saint Paul. He is against this unfair assessment and continues, with diligence, to
fight it in court with the help of lawyers and the support of other churches. He is fueled
and self-determined by the inequality and inequity that the church is facing. He continues
fighting because this is not morally or ethically justified in his eyes. This self-discipline
also relates to staying passionate about the mission because both relate to the compassion
and heart behind what compels an authentic leader.
The mission of First Baptist Church of Saint Paul (2001-2014) involves the following
components: to reach out deliberately and welcome people of all ages, races, cultures and
backgrounds, care for one another, provide opportunities for spiritual renewal and
growth, gather for worship and prayer, promote peace and social justice and work as
American Baptists in partnership with other organizations and faith communities to
further the Kingdom of God. These components were written with the help of Pastor Bill
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and his congregation of followers. The tag line of the church is also “Hope in the Heart of
the City.” The church followers and Pastor Bill work to carry out this mission every day
and it is represented by the countless hours of work and time spent at the building and in
the community. Pastor Bill is always on call to anyone for anything and responds to the
call whole heartedly. He lives this mission by making trips to followers’ homes, jails and
hospitals to visit at the drop of a hat. He truly leads with his heart.
Authentic leadership is a style that involves a lifelong process where the leader is
both formed and informed by each individual’s life story. The experiences that Pastor Bill
has afford him a title of an authentic leader. The style itself is very much about
compassion, connectedness, consistency and passion and these embody Pastor Bill as
evident from the examples listed above. The last realm of leadership to be discussed is a
theory that appears to mesh with Pastor Bill. This is the path-goal theory. This is a
leadership style that shares similar components of authentic leadership with a focus that
the leader remain supportive and achievement-oriented to motivate followers.
Path-Goal Theory
Path-goal leadership is a theory designed to explain how leaders help followers
along their path by selecting behaviors that meet the needs of the followers and the
situation that the followers are working. It is then further defined by breaking it down
into the leader behaviors of directive, supportive, participative, and achievement oriented
(Northouse, 2015). It is critical that the leader understands the leadership style
understands that best meets the followers’ motivational needs.
For this section of the paper, it will take the focus off of Pastor Bill as a pastor
and in the light that I most identify with him as simply, my dad. I have seen him exercise
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directive behaviors with me as I can clearly remember form my childhood. In directive
leadership, the leader gives instructions, expectations, how a task is to be done, and a
timeline for completion (Northouse, 2015). I was assigned chores as a child and had a
chart which I needed to complete by the end of the week. This was an expectation of
being in our family. I remember being told to do the cat litter, vacuum the stairs, set or
clear the table, and keep both my room and the bathroom clean. This was under the
direction of my father who knew that instilling these expectations and being very
directive about the process, was the best way to handle a child in middle school and my
developmental stage. Being directive in assigning chores created clarity for me as a
follower from my dad, just as his being a supportive leader for our family created respect
for each member of our family to be equals.
My dad has a great way of being supportive of our family. Support can be defined
as attending to the well-being and being friendly and approachable to followers
(Northouse, 2015). When the tragedy of my younger sister April suddenly dying struck
our family in 2008, my dad was the glue that held us together. In this time of udder
despair and not being able to comprehend what had occurred, my dad consoled each
member of my family with open arms, a shoulder to cry on, and an ear to listen. He
always took time with each of us to talk about how we felt and when there were no
words, he just held us. This is a true testament of a supportive leader in a situation where
he kept our family together when things were rocky. For this, I am forever grateful to
him. Knowing when to take on the supportive leadership style is a behavior that can help
others get through the most critical days, when the obstacles seem overwhelming. Being
a supportive leader relates to being a participative leader because one needs to have built
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a relationship that invites sharing of ideas. This can only be achieved in a healthy way
through first feeling supported to be open to making suggestions without feeling
threatened.
In participative leadership, the followers share in the decisions making. The
leaders consult followers, gathers their ideas and integrates in their suggestions to make
decisions (Northouse, 2015). An example to highlight from my dad in this leadership
style is from when he would take my middle sister and me to the grocery store for food
samples every Friday. He would let us sit in the cart and we would want to get all the
sugary snacks and cereals that we would see on the shelves as we made our way from
sample to sample. He would ask us what we wanted and allow us to put everything into
the cart. Once we arrived at the checkout, we would talk about what was a healthy option,
the prices of each item, and our needs versus wants. Most of the time, the sugary snacks
and cereals ended up returning to the shelves, but every so often, one would make it
home in the grocery bag. This act of allowing us to be part of the discussion based
decision making is symbolic of participative leadership by recognizing the collaboration
and input my sister and I were able to communicate with our dad. Participative leadership
is more collaborative in nature than achievement-oriented leadership.
In achievement-oriented leadership, the follower is subject to challenges set for
them by the leader. For this reason it is a more independent process than participative
leadership because different followers perform at different levels therefore having
different standards. The leader establishes a high standard for excellence, as well as seeks
to gain continuous improvement from followers. It is also important to note that the
leader show a high level of confidence that followers can accomplish the set goals
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(Northouse, 2015). My dad constantly challenged me to be the best that I could be in
sports and academics, but never in a way that I felt was out of reach of his goals or my
own. A sport that I struggle with is tennis. My dad played in high school and continues to
play to this day. As a gift for his birthday a few years ago, I promised him I’d play a
game of tennis with him. Knowing that my skills were lacking and that I wasn’t very
good, he challenged me to work on my serving. He challenged me to serve five good
balls in a row after showing me a few techniques. I failed the first few times, but
eventually, after about an hour, I met the goal. My dad knew I could do it and otherwise
would not have tried to intentionally set me up for failure. He had seen me be successful
in other sports using the same motions as in serving in tennis.
Although there were times of frustration, accomplishing this challenge made me
want to keep playing and as result of my dad’s leadership, kept me motivated to
continually work at it. Now I look forward to challenging my dad in tennis and my
serving is getting progressively better. This story sheds light on the achievement-oriented
leadership style of my dad and his expectation for excellence.
Conclusion
This paper highlighted the numerous methods that one person can lead in multiple
ways. My dad connects most with the definitions and behaviors of servant leadership,
authentic leadership and path-goal theory to lead followers as outlined in this paper. This
is not to say that there are not more styles of leadership or theories that my dad or anyone
else can fit into as a mold for a leader, but these three showed the strongest connections
from my perspective. I am so grateful to have my dad in my life and to see the impact
that he has as a leader in my life and the lives of so many others. The paper reflects the
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progression from my dad working with others as a leader in the community to working
within my own family. He wears many hats; as a dad, an activists for the community and
clergy member, and in all of them demonstrates what an effective leader can do.
Insights
In looking at my dad’s life as a successful leader, it has made me take time to
reflect on how leadership plays a role in my current position as supervisor for a college
access program. I currently supervise nearly 20 staff members and am the direct link
between the leadership team in our program and the staff members’ who work out in the
field with students. I see how each of the leadership styles that I identified in my dad can
be helpful not only to my current position, but later on in life in continuing to work in the
field of student affairs.
The servant leadership style is helpful in remembering to put the followers first. It
is important to remember that in supervision, I am in the office and can be out of touch
with the situations that staff deal with out in the field. I need to take time to listen, be
empathetic, and provide empowerment to staff because they are doing the grunt work.
Being a servant leader in students affairs is similar the idea of supervising, when you are
constantly working to advocate for students and putting their needs before your own
agenda. Servant leadership appears to be useful to creating a nurturing and supportive
environment for followers and this can be a good foundation for work with professionals
and students.
Working with these two groups of followers, students and professionals, also
lends well to the authentic leadership style where it is invaluable to be consistent with
followers. A strong element that ties the success of operations in programs is when
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people feel valued and connected. Authentic leadership is about building and
strengthening relationships and interactions. This put in to practice in both supervision
and student affairs is making time to get to know people on an individual level and doing
it often with check-ins. It is about building trust and leading with what you feel on the
inside to keep followers onboard by continually demonstrating genuine care and concern.
Bringing in care and concern for people ties into path-goal theory because you
need to have a general interest in people and know about them in order to know how it is
appropriate to challenge them. As a supervisor, I see this theory as helping staff to
achieve program goals that have been outlined by their position descriptions as well as
myself as a supervisor. Some of these goals need to be adapted depending on the situation
and conditions in which the staff are working. Path-goal theory can help me as a
supervisor to meet with individual staff and work on removing barriers to completing
their own goals and program goals. In working with students in higher education, this
theory is important to consider when working with a students on navigating college and
helping them to create a plan to graduate successfully.
Applying these leadership styles and theories to potential use in the professional
field keeps me excited to continue learning about what else is out there in theory and
practice. I would like to enhance my current behaviors and skills and hone in on the areas
that I can improve on to work at becoming an exceptional leader.
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References
First Baptist Church of Saint Paul Minnesota Blog (2001-2014). Retrieved from: http://blog.firstbaptiststpaul.org/about/
Greenleaf, R. K. (1970). The servant as a leader. Westfield, IN: Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership.
Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership theory and practice (7th ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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