Adaptive Leadership in Times of Crisis: A Qualitative Multi-Case Study of Pastors Serving Local Churches in the California-Pacific Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church

Abstract

Research on organizational crises has revealed that modern organizations have suffered from the high frequency of crises and their magnitude. The church is not exempted from encountering a crisis. In times of crisis, adaptive leadership has been studied in various sectors, such as education, healthcare, and business. There is a gap in the literature on the linkage between adaptive leadership to a crisis in the context of religious organizations. The problem to be addressed in this study was the lack of research on how adaptive leadership was practiced in leading the church and conducting pastors' ministry duties in local churches. This qualitative exploratory multi-case study explored how a crisis can impact pastors' perception of adopting an adaptive leadership style in leading the church and conducting their ministries in the California-Pacific Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. This study used the theoretical framework of adaptive leadership. A purposive sampling strategy was used in this study. The study's total sample size was 25 and consisted of senior/lead pastors from five districts of the California-Pacific Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church serving a different church size. This study used interviews and demographic questions as its instruments. The data was collected by using Zoom and Qualtrics online platforms. The interview sessions were conducted via Zoom, transcribed using the Zoom auto-transcription feature, reviewed by each interviewee, and analyzed using NVivo software. The Qualtrics online questionnaire responses were analyzed using the Qualtrics Online Data Analysis. Three significant themes that emerged from the three research questions in the study were "unexpected," "change," and "contextual." The implication of this study was that the impact of a crisis on pastors' perception of adopting adaptive leadership varies based on the context where each pastor was in ministry. Based on the findings of the three research questions of this study, the California-Pacific Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church was recommended to offer leadership training and cultivate a safe learning culture. The recommendation for future research was to study adaptive leadership in The United Methodist Church of different regions of the United States and other religious organizations in different contexts.