Bishop too king? Putting nominators to work

A thought on Anglican HR
Thanks to Dave for this thought.

Anglican churches in Sydney have a complex and fascinating system for replacing rectors (senior ministers/senior pastors/priest in charge/etc). I'm not sure how similar/different it might be elsewhere; I'd love to hear. As part of this process, each year the vestry meeting (=AGM) elects around five people to be 'nominators' for the year. This means that they are entrusted with the weighty task of doing nothing all year. Nothing, that is, unless the rector leaves/dies/commits gross sin. If the parish is thus left without senior leadership, then this group starts looking for a replacement. They have a very busy and weighty job of selecting, interviewing, and making recommendations to the Archbishop (there is then a further complicated process in which both the Diocese and the parish have a significant say. As I understand it, this is significantly different to many Anglican dioceses in which the bishop is king). Anyway, much as I'd love to hear reflections on/experiences of this process (or those within other systems), my main point is that nominators don't do anything for years at a time (one Sydney parish had an incumbent for 36 years recently: a long time between drinks for the nominators...).

But, what if... rectors were to make use of nominators at other times? In particular, whenever there is a new staff appointment to be made, the rector could use the nominators as a consultation panel, or to do the legwork, or to run the interviews, or all of these and more. I'm a big fan of consultative leadership. I also like the fact that the rector has tenure in a parish and can't easily be dismissed at the whim of a congregation. The ideal is for rector and congregation to build a relationship of trust in which the rector can lead by invitation and example, by exhortation and consultation, rather than decree. This is all fairly obvious, and indeed, it might be that most parishes already do something like this (if so, let me know). In any case, perhaps making use of nominators in this way (as the trusted elected representatives of the parish) would be a simple but effective way of demonstrating and building trust, of training nominators through letting them cut their teeth on smaller decisions, and of ensuring that new appointments fit not only the rector, but also the congregation(s).

PS This post is no criticism of any recent staff appointments at church. It arose from observing the bun-rush for parish jobs amongst fourth years at college at the moment and reflecting upon the variety of processes found amongst parishes.
Ten points for naming the Sydney church in the pic.