LARC - Leadership and Administration Resource Center
Case Studies on Leadership and Administration
Over the last three years I have been collecting case studies for use in my classes. They are written by pastors who have chosen particular incidents that illustrate leadership issues in their congregations. Topics range from personnel disputes to harassment to assimilation of new members to multi-staff relationships.
I often use the case studies as an exercise through which students can better understand a congregation as an organization. I ask them to interpret the case through the basic frameworks of my introductory course: organizations as cultures, relational (emotional) systems, political systems, and units of productivity. This approach avoids the temptation to address each case solely as a problem to be solved by the pastor – the lone ranger, pastor as fixer paradigm.
So I’ve found it useful to begin discussion of the cases with questions like:
What does this case show about the character and culture of this congregation?
What might be a strategic point at which a leader could intervene in this system?
Who could most creatively be involved in finding the way forward from this
situation?
Using Case Studies
- Article: Writing Case Studies in Leadership
Links to Case Studies
- Case Study 1: Let the Dead Bury the Dead
- Case Study 2: A Bitter-Sweet Gift
- Case Study 3: Stay or Go: An Associate's Dilemma
- Case Study 4: I Hate You
- Case Study 5: The Tenant and the Old City Church
- Case Study 6: Grappling with a Key Church Leader (Power Play)
- Case Study 7: Nurturing and Disciplining Staff Members
- Case Study 8: The Challenge of the Militant Peacemakers
- Case Study 9: Love Thy Neighbor
- Case Study 10: The Great Seat Settlement
- Case Study 11: Nowhere to Turn
- Case Study 12: This Old House
Contact Information
Dr. Thomas E. Frank
Professor of Religious Leadership and Administration
Candler School of Theology
Emory University
Atlanta, GA 30322
thomas.frank@emory.edu
404.727.6325