28 Key Attributes Clergy Need To Succeed In Their Career

by Olivia Williams

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Clergy conduct religious worship and perform other spiritual functions associated with beliefs and practices of religious faith or denomination. Provide spiritual and moral guidance and assistance to members.

The core tasks that clergy are likely to carry out include:

Pray and promote spirituality.
Read from sacred texts such as the Bible, Torah, or Koran.
Prepare and deliver sermons or other talks.
Organize and lead regular religious services.
Share information about religious issues by writing articles, giving speeches, or teaching.
Instruct people who seek conversion to a particular faith.

In order to successfully forge ahead with their careers, analysts in a survey carried out by U.S. Department of Labor (via O*NET) have marked out the following as important attributes that clergy would need. These attributes have been selected from characteristics and requirements strongly associated with the occupation. They are

Abilities: Enduring attributes of the individual that influence performance
Interests: Preferences for work environments. Occupational Interest Profiles (OIPs) are compatible with Holland's (1985, 1997) model of personality types and work environments. Six interest categories are used to describe the work environment of occupations: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. An OIP consists of six numerical scores indicating how descriptive and characteristic each work environment (or interest area) is for an occupation
Knowledge: Organized sets of principles and facts applying in general domains
Skills: These include basic skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate learning or the more rapid acquisition of knowledge. Plus cross-functional skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate performance of activities that occur across jobs
Style: Personal characteristics that can affect how well someone performs a job

We have listed out attributes which were scored 80% or more in terms of importance by the analysts.

Having a strong preference for social work environments. Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.
Attribute Type: Interests Score: 100%

The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 92.6%

The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 92.6%

Actively looking for ways to help people.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 92.4%

Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 90%

Teaching others how to do something.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 90%

The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 90%

Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 90%

Talking to others to convey information effectively.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 90%

Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 87.6%

The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 87.6%

Being honest and ethical.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 87.6%

The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 85%

Being sensitive to others' needs and feelings and being understanding and helpful on the job.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 84%

Maintaining composure, keeping emotions in check, controlling anger, and avoiding aggressive behavior, even in very difficult situations.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 83.8%

Being pleasant with others on the job and displaying a good-natured, cooperative attitude.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 83.4%

Being reliable, responsible, and dependable, and fulfilling obligations.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 83%

The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 82.6%

Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 82.4%

Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 82.4%

Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 82.4%

Accepting criticism and dealing calmly and effectively with high stress situations.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 81.8%

Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 80%

Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
Attribute Type: Skills Score: 80%

The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%

The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%

The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%

The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
Attribute Type: Abilities Score: 80%