Servant Leadership and African American Pastors - AURA

133 Pages·2013·2.05 MB·English

by  Clarence Bunch

Antioch University
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Dissertations & Theses
2013
Servant Leadership and African American Pastors
Clarence Bunch
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SERVANT LEADERSHIP AND AFRICAN AMERICAN PASTORS

CLARENCE BUNCH
A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Ph.D. in Leadership and Change Program
of Antioch University
in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

January, 2013
This is to certify that the Dissertation entitled:
SERVANT LEADERSHIP AND AFRICAN AMERICAN PASTORS
prepared by
Clarence Bunch

is approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in
Leadership and Change.

Approved by:

Jon Wergin, Ph.D., Chair date

Laura Morgan Roberts, Ph.D., Committee Member date

Richard Couto, Ph.D., Committee Member date

Drew Smith, Ph.D., External Reader date
Copyright 2013, Clarence Bunch
All rights reserved
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation for the support and contribution of
everyone who assisted me during this project. I extend a special thanks to LaStander, my wife,
Tatiana, Ayanna, and Gianna. Thank you, Tatiana, for inspiring me through your academic
excellence as a straight-A student. Thank you, Ayanna, for always being ready to cheer daddy past
his perceived obstacles. Thank you, Gianna, for representing the idea of new life, new beginning,
and new direction. Especially, I thank LaStander Bunch, my wife, for her love, support, and
patience for tolerating me these past few years. Without your support, I would not have been able
to have completed my studies and certainly would not have been able to survive the process, so,
thank you.
I would like to offer my thanks to my committee chairperson, Dr. Jon Wergin, for his
encouragement. I am thankful for your insight, patience, and support. I also thank the members of
my dissertation committee, Dr. Richard Couto and Dr. Laura Roberts, for their valuable insights
into the research and writing process.
I express appreciation to the members of First Zion Baptist Church for their support and
patience over the past few years. I thank Parvell Warren for his relentless assistance to obtain the
data. I would like to especially thank Sister Shirley Lewis for her motherly support and her
persistent encouragement to me and my family along the way.
Finally, I express my deepest gratitude to Randy Jordan, my supervisor, for his flexibility,
kindness, and support. I thank all of the pastors who took time out to participate in the study.
Also, I thank Dr. Kumar, Rev. Dr. Land, and Darwitt Garrett for their guidance and help over the
past years.

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Abstract
Robert Greenleaf (1977) took a follower’s, rather than a leader-centric, point of view of
leadership by describing a leader as one who leads by serving. He identified a leader as one who
sets other people’s needs above his or her own. He argued that motivation of leaders must begin
with the conscious choice to serve others. Greenleaf’s concept provides the basis for a
theoretical model of servant leadership. This dissertation examines the extent to which African
American pastors exhibit servant leadership characteristics, using the Servant Leadership
Questionnaire (Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006). A sample of 358 African American pastors from 11
denominations across the United States was included in this study. This study uses a non-
experimental quantitative approach to examine the behaviors and attitudes of African American
pastors through Barbuto and Wheeler’s (2006) Servant Leadership Questionnaire, which has five factors
(altruistic calling, emotional healing, organizational stewardship, persuasive mapping, and
wisdom). The results of this study showed that African American pastors sometimes see
themselves as servant leaders: that is, they fall into the middle range of the scale. Among
various demographic variables, including age, gender, denomination, and years in service, a
statistically significant difference in SLQ score was found only in size of church. Contrary to the
study’s initial expectations, African American pastors reported highest subscale scores on
persuasive mapping and not altruistic calling. This finding invites further qualitative research.  
The electronic version of this dissertation is available through the OhioLink ETD Center at
http://ohiolink.edu/etd.

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Table of Contents
Chapter I: Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1
Statement of the Problem .............................................................................................. 4
Significance of the Problem .......................................................................................... 5
Research Questions ....................................................................................................... 6
Study Population ........................................................................................................... 7
Description of Terms .................................................................................................... 7
Summary of Chapters ................................................................................................... 9
Chapter II: Review of Literature ....................................................................................... 10
The Black Church ....................................................................................................... 10
Leadership ................................................................................................................... 14
Approaches to Pastoral Leadership ............................................................................. 15
Autocratic Leaders ...................................................................................................... 18
Charismatic Leadership .............................................................................................. 19
Tramsformational Leaders .......................................................................................... 20
Servant Leadership...................................................................................................... 22
Secular View of Servant Leadership ..................................................................... 24
Biblical View of Servant Leadership .................................................................... 28
Empirical Research on Servant Leadership .......................................................... 33
Measures of Servant Leadership ........................................................................... 37
Altruistic Calling ......................................................................................................... 43
Summary ..................................................................................................................... 45
Chapter III: Methodology ................................................................................................. 46
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The SLQ Questionnaire .............................................................................................. 46
Population and Participants ......................................................................................... 47
Baptist Church ............................................................................................................ 48
The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. ....................................................... 48
The National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. (NBCA) ................................ 48
The Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc. (PNBC) ................................ 49
The National Missionary Baptist Convention of America (NMBCA) ................. 50
The African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) ................................................ 50
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) .................................................. 51
The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) ................................................................ 52
The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (CME) .............................................. 52
The Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship International (FGBFI) .................... 53
The Pentecostal Assemblies of the World (PAW) ................................................ 53
Nondenominational Church .................................................................................. 54
Sampling Strategy ....................................................................................................... 55
Data Analysis .............................................................................................................. 59
Delimitations of Study ................................................................................................ 60
Chapter IV: Presentation of Findings ............................................................................... 61
Description of the Sample ........................................................................................... 61
Gender ......................................................................................................................... 63
Education Level Attained ........................................................................................... 63
Age of Participants ...................................................................................................... 64
Pastors’ Experience ..................................................................................................... 65
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Status (Full-time or Bi-vocational) ............................................................................. 65
Location of Pastors ..................................................................................................... 66
Congregation Size ....................................................................................................... 67
Analysis of Data .......................................................................................................... 67
Research Question One ............................................................................................... 70
Research Question Two .............................................................................................. 72
Research Question Three ............................................................................................ 73
Research Question Four .............................................................................................. 74
Research Question Five .............................................................................................. 75
Research Question Six ................................................................................................ 76
Research Question Seven ............................................................................................ 77
Other Findings ............................................................................................................ 79
Chapter V: Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 82
Limitation of the Research Findings ........................................................................... 85
Further Research ......................................................................................................... 86
Appendix ........................................................................................................................... 93
Appendix A: Initial Letter ........................................................................................... 94
Appendix B: Approval Received ................................................................................ 98
Appendix C: Demographic and SLQ Questionnaire .................................................. 99
Appendix D: U.S. Labor Statistics Report ................................................................ 101
Appendix E: Calculation for Number of Pastors to Participate ................................ 102
Appendix F: One-Way ANOVA for Servant Leadership Scores ............................. 103
Appendix G: One-Way ANOVA for Mean and Standard Deviation ....................... 105
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Appendix H: Maps of African American Pastor Locations ...................................... 106
Appendix I: Census on Church Membership and Number of Churches .................. 109
Appendix J: SLQ Subscale Items ............................................................................. 110
Appendix K: Copyright Permission .......................................................................... 111
References ....................................................................................................................... 112

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