7 Mistakes You're Making with Christian Leadership (and How to Fix Them)

Christian leadership isn't just about having the right title or getting people to follow your vision. It's about stewarding the trust that God and your community have placed in you. Yet even the most well-intentioned leaders can fall into patterns that undermine their effectiveness and damage their witness.

Whether you're leading a small group, serving on a ministry team, or pastoring a congregation, these seven common mistakes might be holding you back from the leadership impact God has called you to make. More importantly, each mistake comes with a practical path forward that can transform how you lead.

Mistake #1: Living in Contradiction to Your Words

The gap between what we preach and how we live is perhaps the most devastating mistake in Christian leadership. This isn't always about major scandals, often it's the subtle inconsistencies that slowly erode trust. You preach about faith while panicking under stress. You promote forgiveness while carrying grudges against those who've hurt you. You talk about family values while encouraging a workaholic culture in your ministry.

These contradictions don't just hurt your credibility; they confuse people about what authentic Christian living actually looks like. When your life doesn't match your message, people start questioning whether the message itself is worth following.

How to Fix It: Start by inviting someone you trust to hold you accountable to your stated values. Give them permission to call out inconsistencies they observe, not to shame you, but to help you grow. Create regular times for honest self-reflection, asking God to show you where your walk doesn't match your talk. When you fall short (and you will), acknowledge it openly and work to correct course quickly. Your vulnerability in admitting mistakes often speaks louder than perfect performance ever could.

Mistake #2: Practicing Reactive Prayer Instead of Seeking God First

How many times have you made a decision, implemented a plan, and then asked God to bless it? This backwards approach to prayer reflects a fundamental misalignment in Christian leadership. We make our plans based on our wisdom, our experience, and our best judgment, then we tack on prayer as an afterthought to make it feel more spiritual.

God wants to be involved in your planning process, not just your blessing process. When we skip seeking His guidance upfront, we often find ourselves frustrated when our best-laid plans don't work out the way we hoped.

How to Fix It: Make prayer a primary part of your decision-making process, not a religious formality. Set aside your best mental energy for prayer, not the tired moments between tasks when your mind is scattered. Build prayer into your strategic planning sessions from the beginning. Create space for listening, not just talking, in your prayer time. Sometimes God's direction will align with what you were already thinking; sometimes it won't. Either way, you'll have the confidence that comes from seeking His guidance first.

Mistake #3: Using Leadership Skills to Sell Ideas Rather Than Seeking Wisdom

When you're gifted at communication and persuasion, it's tempting to use those abilities to convince people you're right, especially when you're genuinely convinced of your position. But bypassing the collective wisdom and discernment of your team can lead you down wrong paths, no matter how eloquently you argue for them.

Great Christian leaders know the difference between using their influence to force consensus and using their platform to facilitate genuine discernment. Sometimes the people who push back against your ideas have insights you desperately need to hear.

How to Fix It: Before rolling out a new initiative, genuinely listen to critics and those who disagree. They often have valid points that can strengthen your approach or reveal blind spots you hadn't considered. Take time to seek wisdom from trusted advisors before employing your full persuasive capabilities. Learn to distinguish between genuine consensus that reflects God's direction and mere enthusiasm driven by emotional momentum.

Mistake #4: Confusing Activity with Productivity

Ministry can be incredibly relational, which is valuable and necessary. But sometimes that relational focus can mask a lack of actual progress toward your mission. You can exhaust yourself doing activities that feel like ministry while producing minimal meaningful results. You're busy, you're tired, you feel like you're serving, but you're not actually moving your ministry forward.

This mistake is particularly dangerous because it feels so spiritual. After all, you're spending time with people, you're available, you're serving. But if those activities aren't aligned with your specific calling and mission, you're spinning your wheels while thinking you're making progress.

How to Fix It: Regularly evaluate your meetings and ministry activities for their purposefulness. Ask whether each activity directly serves your specific mission or if it's just something that feels like you should be doing it. Be willing to cut activities that consume energy without producing mission-aligned results. This doesn't mean becoming cold or uncaring, it means being strategic about where you invest your limited time and energy so you can have maximum kingdom impact.

Mistake #5: Drifting From Your Core Calling

The drift from your calling is often unintentional and gradual. Busyness, sustained stress, fatigue, discouragement, or spiritually dry seasons can slowly pull you away from the clarity and passion you once had. Before you know it, you're going through the motions of leadership without the spiritual fuel that originally sustained you.

This drift is dangerous because it's subtle. You're still doing ministry, still leading, still serving, but the fire that once drove you has dimmed to barely glowing embers. People can sense when a leader has lost connection to their calling, even if they can't articulate what feels different.

How to Fix It: Regularly revisit and reconnect with the clarity and passion of your original calling. Write it down. Remind yourself of it when you're facing pressure and fatigue. Ask trusted friends to help you identify whether you're drifting from your core purpose. Consider what seasons of rest, renewal, or refocusing you need to reclaim your calling. Sometimes this means saying no to good opportunities that aren't aligned with your specific mission.

Mistake #6: Pleasing People at the Cost of Pleasing God

Christian leaders face constant pressure to make decisions that keep people comfortable rather than decisions that honor God. This often stems from good motives: genuine love for people and a desire to serve their needs. But when people-pleasing becomes your primary decision-making filter, you compromise your integrity and often fail to provide the spiritual leadership people actually need.

True shepherding sometimes requires making difficult decisions that disappoint people in the short term for their long-term spiritual good. When you consistently choose the path that keeps people happy over the path that honors God, you're not serving people: you're enabling them.

How to Fix It: When facing a decision, ask whether you're choosing the path that pleases God or the path that keeps people comfortable. Remember that loving people sometimes means making choices they don't initially appreciate. Build your decision-making process around seeking God's direction rather than polling your congregation's preferences. Be willing to disappoint people when obedience to God requires it.

Mistake #7: Failing to See Your Own Faults While Magnifying Others'

Some leaders develop a pattern of scrutinizing their congregation's problems intensely while barely examining their own failings. This "mirrorless leadership" makes it easier to blame others for problems and shifts responsibility away from areas where leaders bear accountability.

When you can clearly see everyone else's blind spots but remain oblivious to your own, you create an unhealthy dynamic where accountability only flows one direction. This breeds resentment and prevents the kind of mutual growth that characterizes healthy Christian community.

How to Fix It: Intentionally examine yourself with the same scrutiny you apply to your organization. Ask God to search your heart and reveal inconsistencies in your leadership. When you make mistakes, acknowledge them openly rather than deflecting blame onto others. This creates a culture where accountability becomes mutual rather than one-directional, and it gives you credibility when you need to address problems in others.

Moving Forward in Leadership

The common thread connecting all these mistakes is a departure from alignment: between your words and actions, your stated priorities and actual practices, your reliance on God versus reliance on your own capabilities. The encouraging truth is that recognizing these patterns is the first step toward changing them.

At First Assembly Memphis, we've seen how powerful it can be when leaders commit to growing in these areas. Whether you join us for Sunday worship at 10:30 AM Central (streaming live for anyone worldwide) or connect through Boundless Online Church, you'll find a community committed to authentic leadership development. Our approach recognizes that great leadership isn't about perfection: it's about faithfulness, growth, and the willingness to keep learning.

Christian leadership is both a privilege and a responsibility. The people who follow your lead are trusting you to point them toward Christ, not toward your own agenda or capabilities. When you address these common mistakes, you're not just becoming a better leader: you're becoming a clearer reflection of the ultimate Leader we all follow.

Ready to take your leadership to the next level? Explore our leadership development resources and discover how Boundless Online Church can support your growth, no matter where you are in the world. Great leaders aren't born; they're developed through intentional growth, biblical wisdom, and genuine community.