FCLP 18 | Why Summer Changes Everything - and How to Lead Moms Well (Leading Moms Series)

In this timely leadership episode of the Female Church Leaders Podcast, Kadi Cole highlights a seasonal leadership challenge many churches overlook: how summer impacts the capacity of moms on your team. While ministry often builds momentum after Easter, shifting family rhythms – especially for parents – can quietly reshape energy, focus, and availability.

This episode helps leaders anticipate those changes with intention and offers five practical leadership adjustments that support both ministry effectiveness and family health. Instead of reacting to tension mid-season, you’ll learn how thoughtful planning, clear communication, and shared expectations can create a culture where both leaders and their families are set up to thrive.

TIMESTAMPS

00:53 - Introducing the Leading Moms Series 

02:33 - Understanding the mental load 

03:08 - Why summer intensifies cognitive labor 

04:45 - Three common pitfalls when leading moms 

06:30 - Five proactive leadership strategies 

09:50 - Initiate conversations early

Resources mentioned;

Emerging Trends in Leadership Development  - kadicole.com/trends

Next Steps and Resources:

• Take the Quiz: Identify your growth gap with our Sticky Floor Quiz at femalechurchleaders.com.
• Join a Cohort: Be part of our next Closing the Leadership Gap cohort for guided coaching and monthly Q&A with Kadi. Visit closingtheleadershipgap.com to learn more.
• Stay Connected: Follow us on Instagram @femalechurchleaders for daily encouragement and leadership tools.
• Spread the Word: If you found this episode helpful, please follow, rate, and share the podcast to help us reach more female church leaders.

Tune in and get ready to lead with clarity, strength, and joy. Your calling matters, and we're here to support you every step of the way!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Female Church Leaders Podcast, a weekly resource for women who love God, love the church, and are called to lead. I'm your host, Katie Cole, Church Leader, Autor, and Executive Coach. After more than 30 years in full-time ministry, Open as the only woman at the table, I understand how meaningful yet challenging your calling can be. That's why I created this podcast to remind you that you're not leading alone. Each week, I'll share practical tools, biblical insights, and honest encouragement for the real challenges female leaders face in ministry. So you can grow your skills, strengthen your faith, and lead with more confidence and joy without burning out or striving to prove yourself. We drop a new episode every Monday because Sunday is coming and you are gonna be ready for it. Picture this for a moment. You've just come off Easter, it was full, meaningful, maybe even a little exhausting, but in the best way. And now your church is growing. You've added a service, new people are coming, momentum is building, and one of your key leaders, the one who runs the connection team, is right in the middle of it. She's faithful, she's capable, she loves what she gets to do, but she also has a first grader and a fourth grader. And as exciting as this season is, in the back of her mind, a question is starting to form. How am I going to keep all of this going when summer hits? Here's what I've noticed over the years. Most churches plan really well for Easter. Many churches plan well for fall launch, but very few leaders proactively plan for summer, especially when it comes to the parents on their team. But summer doesn't just change schedules, it also changes capacity. Today's episode begins a new series we'll come back to throughout the year. I'm calling it the Leading Moms series. A few times a year, we'll focus on one question. How do we lead women who are also moms in a way that helps them thrive in both their calling and their family? Because God cares about both. Now, just to be clear, this is not an episode for mom. This is an episode for leaders, female leaders, male leaders, senior leaders, ministry leaders, anyone who is responsible for building healthy teams and shaping culture. Because if you don't think about these issues ahead of time, you will unintentionally create pressure that the moms on your team have to carry alone. Let's talk about why this matters more than we sometimes realize. There's a term in research called the mental load, sometimes also referred to as cognitive labor. It's been studied in workplace and family systems research, and it describes the work that's invisible, the work of planning, anticipating, organizing, and managing details. And multiple studies show that women, especially mothers, disproportionately carry more of this load in their homes. It's not just doing the tasks, but it's the responsibility of thinking about the tasks, tracking them, anticipating them, evaluating them. And summer break from school intensifies them. Planning summer schedules, coordinating childcare, managing camps, vacations, transitions, logistics. And in summer, every week often requires new coordination. And that weight doesn't just stay with her at home. It walks with her into your staff meetings. It shows up in volunteer leadership. It shapes energy, focus, and decision making all throughout the day. And without understanding what it is, it's easy to misread what you see. But often it's capacity, not calling, that's being stretched. And there's a few things you can do as the leader to greatly improve it. Think about that connections leader again. She's just helped launch a new service. She's recruiting volunteers for multiple teams. She's leading people well. And at the same time, she's trying to figure out who's watching the kids this summer. What weeks are the camps offered? How can we all get away together for some family time? And what happens if something falls through? And here's what I want you to realize: nothing is actually broken about her leadership, but everything in her life suddenly feels heavier. Now, I believe church leadership can and should be one of the best environments for a mom. There's purpose, there's flexibility, there's alignment with family values, weekend work can create space during the week for school involvement. And when we steward it well, this can be a place where calling, career, and motherhood align beautifully. But that doesn't happen automatically. It only happens through intentional leadership and support. And when we don't lead this well, three things tend to happen. First, women feel pulled. They start trying to do everything at once work, ministry parenting, and all at full capacity. And the research is clear on this. Multitasking doesn't actually increase productivity, it actually reduces efficiency and increases cognitive fatigue, which means over time burnout becomes more likely. Second, we unintentionally start making leadership decisions for women. We assume this might be too much for her right now, or she probably won't want this promotion. And while that may come from a heart of care, it creates a quiet limitation and bias. Because we stop inviting women into opportunities based on their calling and we start filtering them through our assumptions of their motherhood. And that can shape how a leader sees herself and your church for years to come. A woman may choose not to step into an opportunity, but that's very different from never being invited. And third, we create cultures where people don't feel safe to have honest leadership conversations. So instead of someone saying, I need clarity or I need support or I need to adjust how I'm leading in this next season, people default to what feels acceptable. Oh, I just can't because of the kids. And while family is important, we don't want to build culture where it becomes the only language available for boundaries. We want cultures that have honest, mature leadership conversations about capacity, pacing, priorities, and the personal trade-offs of leadership. Then we can start solving real problems, not just the culturally accepted ones. So this is where we can start shifting how we lead women who are also moms. We move from reactive leadership to proactive leadership in five ways. One, initiate the conversation early. Please do not wait until June. Start now. Pull your team together and say something like, hey, summer is coming, and I want us to plan this well, both for ministry and for your families. Let's talk about what this season looks like for you. This communicates care and responsibility at the same time. It says, I see you, I'm thinking ahead, and we're going to figure this out together. Two, plan for key pressure points. Think through the last day of school, summer schedules, staggering vacation times, and ministry peaks like BBS, camps, and mission trips. And then ask, where will our team feel particularly stretched? Then begin adjusting your plans and expectations accordingly. I'm not talking about lowering standards, but I do want you to align your standards with reality. Three, create flexible but clear structures. This might look like adjusting summer hours, creating temporary schedule shifts, or job sharing for certain roles. But here's the key clarity builds trust. People need to know from you what is flexible, what's not flexible, what do you still expect of me? Because flexibility only works when expectations remain crystal clear. Four, lead with equity, not assumption. This one is really important. Equity doesn't mean everyone on the team does or has the same thing, but it does mean everyone contributes in a way that is fair over time. So maybe someone on your team takes more flexibility in the summer and gives more availability during the school year. This is where good leadership brings alignment across the team and creates a culture where everyone wins in their own way. And five, as you make these decisions, communicate them. Communicate them to your team, communicate them to your peers, communicate them to your leadership. Because healthy culture is built through open understanding, not silent assumptions. The goal is fairness across your team. Again, this isn't about lowering expectations. It's about leading people in a way that allows them to bring their best to both their callings in ministry and their calling in their family. In Exodus 18, we see Moses trying to carry the full weight of leadership on his own. And then Jethro comes alongside him and says, essentially, this is not good. You and the people will wear yourselves out. And then he helps him restructure leadership in a way that is sustainable for him and for the people. Now here's what I want you to see. God's design for leadership includes sustainability for the mission and also for the people carrying it. When we lead moms and really all leaders with this kind of intentionality, we reflect God's heart for both calling and care. So here's the action step I want you to take. In the next couple weeks, way before summer break actually hits, start the conversation with your team, with a key leader, or with a parent in your ministry and ask, what would it look like for you to lead well this summer, both here and at home? Then listen and begin to build a plan together that includes clarity, flexibility, and a win for them, your church, and their family. And as you do this, remember, you're not just managing schedules, you're stewarding people and creating an environment where not only leaders can thrive, but where families are supported and ministry is sustainable. Before we close, we've created a new resource called Emerging Trends in Leadership Development that will help you think even more strategically about building healthy, forward-thinking leadership cultures. You can find that link in the show notes. And if this episode was helpful, share it with another leader on your team, especially someone who is leading volunteers or staff who are also moms, because these are the kind of conversations that can change the shape of the church over time. And finally, we see you. The thought you're putting into your people, the care you're extending to parents, and the intentional leadership you're growing into. It really matters. So keep going and know that we are here cheering you on. I'm so glad we got to spend this time together on the Female Church Leaders Podcast. I hope you're walking away encouraged, equipped, and reminded that your calling truly matters. To keep growing, join us for our next Closing the Leadership Gap cohort at ClosingTheLeadershipGap.com. It's a guided coaching experience, including live QA with me, designed to accelerate your leadership journey. If this podcast has been helpful to you, would you please take a moment to follow, rate, and share it? Your engagement helps the algorithms suggest our resources to female church leaders we haven't had a chance to meet yet. And don't forget to follow at female church leaders on Instagram for encouragement and leadership tools designed just for you. You can also follow my personal feed at Katie Cole spelled K A D I C O L E. Keep leading faithfully, keep growing your leadership gifts, and I'll see you next Monday because Sunday is coming and you are going to be ready for it.