Valerie Ling

11/07/2025

Hello Canada 🇨🇦 ! Another mystery on clergy wellbeing given light. The vast majority of clergy wellbeing studies focus on the strain (burnout) and distress (depression and clinical distress) side. We know that wellbeing is not the absence of ill health. In a study conducted during the pandemic our Canadian friends found that wellbeing increased for some. Looking at measures of wellbeing, ego-resiliency, grit, and ratings by clergy of congregational flourishing, they found:

1. Older clergy had higher ratings on the wellbeing scales (this is a recurring theme in research papers), despite of poorer physical health

2. During the pandemic increased stress and increased satisfaction was found (hypothesised to be due to more time and resources to nurture spiritual life, less on one's plate

3. Clergy's ratings on congregational flourishing was linked to their wellbeing.

Clarke, M., Spurr, S., & Walker, K. (2022). The Well-Being and Resilience of Canadian Christian Clergy. Pastoral psychology, 71(5), 597–613.

Clergy play significant leadership, educational, and caregiving roles in society. However, burnout is a concern for the clergy profession, those they serve, and their families. Effects include decreased ministry effectiveness, lower sense of personal accomplishment in their role, and negative impact...

11/07/2025

The social of burnout and the two dimensions of wellbeing and illness.

10/07/2025

Leadership or Followership? Depends on the dancers, and the dance.

Yesterday was my quarterly leadership reporting meeting at Centre For Effective Living. Since I handed over the reins to our new leadership team - performance has improved. Data on client care, retention, clinical standards, and the various business metrics - improved.

We have several different formal meetings pre-booked in the year. This was not a well-being meeting. So we assumed resilient and objective postures and dove in.

At one point in the meeting I was tunnelling down hunting for some data to explain a decision we were making. It was a really small decision. For me, however, it was hugely important. It was about safety in our physical rooms.

I noticed a few things - I was leaning in, frowning, I was cutting off sentences, I was charging through data points that had already been considered by my clinic managers. I noticed a few things in them. I thought they were starting to lean back, still looking at me and engaging, but the balance felt off.

A few things could be formulated in this moment - the most important was a dynamic shift. Power was moving.

Continuing the way I was going would have disempowered them (on a decision that had already been made with consultation through the team). But even more sinisterly, I was pushing power. Through my personality. Through my own need for information. Through my rank and position in our team.

I like Oxfam's work on power analysis. Beyond interpersonal power (which is a lens I have mainly worked from), they look at systemic power (this is taken directly from their website (https://lnkd.in/g_kNA2_T):

Power over: the power of the strong over the weak, including the power to exclude others.
Power to: the capability to decide actions and carry them out: knowledge, skills, tools.
Power with: collective power, through organisation, solidarity and joint action.
Power within: personal self-confidence, often linked to culture, religion or other
aspects of identity, which influences the thoughts and actions that appear legitimate or acceptable.
Power for: the power of a clear vision and sense of purpose.
Power under: passing on mistreatment to others through fear, humiliation, anger, resentment, superiority, arrogance.

In my current PhD ponderings, I am considering mutual power - that of leaders and that of their followers.

It seems to me that the type of power frame we find ourselves in as leader and follower, is deeply embedded in our own histories and cultural context.

A waltz is really different from a tango.

I am appreciating more and more the cultural curiosity and complexity that comes from one aspect of the dance. Power. Yet there are so many more dimensions to be explored?

01/07/2025

As I have been looking at the core aspects of workplace spirituality, I have been thinking about the push against "passion" at work. I have also been brought into conversations that stereotype (and I think dehumanise) certain levels of work. In one such conversation I was challenged - "Do you really think the 15-year old McDonalds worker is finding meaning in their work?". I think our shallow use of the English language is partly the issue. Passion - has been narrowly fixed to a type of fire-hot, exuberant, all compelling emotional state. I rarely feel that in any given day. However, the sense of community, doing something for someone, finding a moment of confidence in something you did not have before - sure! And by the way, the organisation of McDonalds has survived decades in the face of many who have tumbled. As a 15-year old McDonalds worker, I learnt many things in that job. Most importantly, I had managers who were kind, genuine and generous. Consistently, when I was on duty for cleaning, I was given appreciation for the environment that our customers would walk into. There was pride at being able to help out a crew member with rosters and shifts and being a part of a team. Perhaps we need to widen our vocabulary. It is possible to be enthusiastic, curious, intrigued, fascinated and thankful in our work, as it is to be frustrated, discouraged, challenged, annoyed and tired. The conversation to have, is whether the environment and the work consistently and constantly outweighs the sense of engagement and contribution. That's a different thing altogether.

01/07/2025

Leadership is often thought of as Getting People to Get The Job Done. I think the most important part of that assumption is Getting People. I don't know of any theory or practice of motivation that works on the principle of getting people to do things. Mostly, it's about first understanding their needs, their drivers, the things on their mind, hearts, and plates. What do you think?

30/06/2025

Making a case of examining leadership wellbeing. My opening paragraph:

For the first time since the pandemic, workers’ engagment has fallen costing organisations upwards of $430 billion, and this has been linked to declines in managerial engagement (Gallup, 2025). This domino effect highlights the crucial role leadership plays in the thriving of an organisation’s most important assets – their human resources. Yet, in a post-pandemic world with increased pressures stemming from global unrest, economic uncertainty, restructures and redundancies, the ditigal pace and load, and the flow-on effects on workforce expectations for greater flexibility – leaders themselves, as a significant human resource are not fairing well (Lifeworks, 2021, Gallup, 2025. Statistics being reported include up to 80% of leaders reporting higher levels of emotional exhaustion and 50% have considered leaving their role (Lifeworks, 2021). Limited organisational support, declining satisfaction in peer relationships, decreasing satisfaction with health, and a reduced sense of stress management effectiveness contribute to the decline in leadership wellbeing (Gallup, 2025).

30/06/2025

Leadership from the front? Leadership from the middle? Leadership within the complex. This latter definition is probably the most apt in our times.

"Leadership today is a highly relational process that encompasses continuous self-reflection, an understanding of difference and significant action that benefits others" (Komives et al, 2013).

Written over a decade ago, yet still relevant as we become more globalised, and with it, more connected in the issues that make or break society and our participation of common good.

11/06/2025

Today I am reviewing the literature on calling. Seems like Zoo Keepers experience similar calling dynamics and costs as clergy!

"A qualitative examination of work meaning in the zoo-keeping profession pointed to the centrality of the notion of work as a personal calling. The view of calling expressed by zookeepers, however, was closer in basic structure to the classical conceptualization of the Protestant reformers than it was to more recent formulations. We used qualitative data from interviews with U.S. zookeepers to develop hypotheses about the implications of this neoclassical conceptualization of calling for the relationship between individuals and their work. We found that a neoclassical calling is both binding and ennobling. On one hand, zookeepers with a sense of calling strongly identified with and found broader meaning and significance in their work and occupation. On the other hand, they were more likely to see their work as a moral duty, to sacrifice pay, personal time, and comfort for their work, and to hold their zoo to a higher standard. Results of a survey of zookeepers from 157 different zoos in the U.S. and Canada supported the hypotheses from our emergent theory. These results reveal the ways in which deeply meaningful work can become a double-edged sword."

Bunderson & Thompson, 2009
https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.2009.54.1.32

03/06/2025

I have often theorised that those of us in ministry do not share the same wellbeing view. There are a portion of us who have a general sense of positive life wellbeing, AND who find joy and meaning in our ministry. Then there is a portion that we see in our clinical psychology practice who are well and truly meet clinical criteria for depression and/or anxiety. Between those who are flourishing and those who are drowning, is an at risk group.

A recent Duke study that tracked the wellbeing of over a thousand U.S. United Methodist ministers pre and post covid found that:

36–44% were flourishing prior to the pandemic AND they maintained this during Covid

18% were “burdened but fulfilled” —experiencing both high accomplishment and high stress prior to the pandemic,

24% were languishing prior to the pandemic—struggling with motivation and energy,

and 14–22% were distressed showing significant clinical symptoms prior to the pandemic.

About a quarter of both the "burdened but fulfilled" and languishing group moved to the distressed group after the pandemic.

Australian data from the 2021 National Church Life Survey (NCLS) shows a similar pattern: while many church leaders feel effective and engaged, many report higher levels of ministry stress and for some emotional exhaustion has increased (since the NCLS 2016 survey).

In my Masters of Leadership research project (2023), I found that about a third of clergy had sought psychological therapy in the last 12 months (post pandemic).

What does this mean?

It is important to care for the significant percentage of our clergy who are not out of the woods or sliding into clinical levels of distress. While it is beneficial for them to have space and time to generate positive wellbeing, the work conditions must also shift.

Reference:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953624000959?via%3Dihub

https://www.ncls.org.au/articles/leader-effectiveness-and-stress/

22/05/2025

Do you see what I see?

Are we moving in the same direction?

Are our goals and values aligned?

What happens when ministry leaders and their congregations aren't on the same page? The answer might lie in followership—not just leadership.

In organisational research, goal alignment between leaders and followers is critical for engagement, trust, and sustainability. Yet in church contexts, we rarely examine this.

According to the 2021 National Church Life Survey data, these were the top three areas church attenders felt should be prioritised:

A stronger sense of community (36%)

Spiritual growth (34%)

Nurturing worship services (28%)

What Church Leaders Believe They Should Be Doing

The top three things leaders wish they could focus on more:

Teaching the faith (56%)

Training people for ministry and mission (47%)

Developing a clear vision and goals for the future (40%)

And what they actually spend the most time doing:

Leading worship and sacraments (57%)

Teaching the faith (55%)

Administration (42%)

Where are the misalignments?

While 40% of church leaders saw vision activities as being important, 18% of church leaders said they were actually doing this. About 15% of church goers placed priority on church growth.

While 47% of church leaders see the importance of training others for ministry and mission, 15% of church attenders thought faith sharing and inviting was a priority

Church attenders seem to prioritise internal needs, while church leaders are focused on growth that not only feeds us internally, but translates us to external action.

What does this suggest?

Church leaders are navigating a tension: wanting to raise up others for ministry and cast vision for the future, while also holding space for the weekly rhythms of teaching, worship, and church administration.

The cost of misalignment is likely to explain some of the wellbeing findings we find in church leadership. They are both highly engaged and committed in their ministry AND exhausted. It is not only in the doing, but in the juggling of competing demands, these demands often linked to core convictions of what it is to be a faithful servant in their ministry.

Sources:

https://www.ncls.org.au/articles/ministry-roles-ideal-versus-reality/

https://www.ncls.org.au/articles/churchgoers-prioritise-community/

NCLS Research explores Australian spirituality, church health, effective and resilient leadership, and the connections between church and community. The most well known five-yearly project is called the National Church Life Survey, which has had millions of participants.

22/05/2025

Why I’m Investigating Followership in Leadership Wellbeing

Most research into leader wellbeing identifies role based stressors, and what leaders themselves can do to modify their appraisals, work habits and self care practices.

This line of thinking spills over into clergy as leaders. I would say, into every relational, service based leader. As we shift our view into the organisational elements that contribute to psychosocial hazards (as we should), we also need to look at the relational systems. High people and service sectors work through, for, and with people. The issues are highly relational. Rarely does a standard checklist account for the great variety in human interaction, in their context.

The study of Followership is about viewing the interplay of leader-follower dynamics, seeing the resulting impact of leaders through this lens. Leader wellbeing is one such impact.

What We Already Know About the Relational System and Its Impact on Clergy:

Personal criticism from congregants is one of the most damaging stressors for clergy, contributing to emotional exhaustion and lower job satisfaction.

Congregational conflict, even when minor, is common and emotionally taxing; few clergy report ministering in conflict-free environments.

Supportive relationships with lay leaders, elders, and staff are consistently linked to improved clergy mental health and job satisfaction.

Social isolation and lack of close, personal relationships within the church community amplify feelings of loneliness, self-doubt, and burnout.

Perceived role ambiguity and overload are intensified in relationally strained environments, especially when expectations are not openly discussed or aligned.

Supervisory and denominational support can buffer against stress, but day-to-day relational dynamics within the local church are more proximal and often more impactful.

Congregations that humanise rather than idealize their clergy foster environments where well-being is more likely to be sustained.

Friendship with congregants or elders, when approached with discernment, can act as a protective factor rather than a boundary risk.

Congregational culture (e.g., trust, civility, emotional maturity) plays a significant role in either enhancing or eroding clergy resilience.

Lack of relational support is not neutral—it is a form of strain that contributes to micro-aggressions, over-demanding behaviour, and eventual burnout.

Followership Role Clarity, Values Alignment, Induction, Orientation and Development seems to play an important role in sustaining leadership.

22/05/2025

Beyond achieving a zen like state - mindfulness interventions in leadership is about:

Practicing psychological detachment

Shifting neurological pathways in our brain

Restoring depleted cognitive resources

Increasing mental health capital

Leadership is costly to the leader. Complex decision matrices, shifting technological and ethical landscapes. Emotional and cognitive demands eats away at our finite attention.

It is wonderful to see the religious literature catch up on research in this recent Duke Clergy & Religion Research Collaborative paper. Here - the emotional style of Attention ( the ability to stay focused and eliminate distractions) was found to moderate the effects of burnout. The same was found for Outlook (maintaining positivity even in adversity) and Resilience (returning to a stabilising emotional states).

Emotional styles, which compose an individual’s dependable pattern of responses to their temporary emotional states, have been associated with academic success, life satisfaction, and flourishing m...