What is the work of a pastor? What is he about? There are lots of good answers to this question. Different answers fit different aspects of the question. Here's one. A pastor helps his people see reality so they can live according to what is real instead of the lies they have been told.
That's how we all start out, believing lies. We don't see reality clearly enough - not nearly. And that's why we live so badly. How could it be otherwise? We live according to a 'reality' that is not accurate. It's filled with lies. The work of a pastor is to confront those lies. The pastor needs to destroy them so that what is true, what is real, can be seen more clearly.
How does he do that? The first (and obvious) requirement is that he see reality. Now, he won't see it with utter clarity. No one this side of the destruction of Satan will. But he needs to see it at least a little better than the people he is shepherding. And assuming that he succeeds at helping them to see reality better, he will also need to be seeing reality with increasing clarity. He always needs to be a step or two ahead of the flock.
If he is going to succeed in showing the congregation more of reality he will need to be confrontational. That doesn't mean that he needs to confront the people. He needs to confront the lies they have been told. However, to be honest, there may well be those who will feel like he is confronting them. After all, those lies that he will be exposing will feel like truths to the folk he speaks to.
That means that a pastor will need to work hard at giving his people all sorts of reasons to trust him. After all, rejecting a I've-always-thought-this-was-a-truth just because someone says it's a lie is a very big deal. And that's especially so for those 'truths' that are more basic to how people live.
So, the biggest need in a pastor is a developing piety. This piety begins with the awareness that he, himself, still believes lies about reality. In so many ways he's as blind to truth as the people he cares for. And that awareness leads him to depend on Jesus to expose the lies in his own life and get him to believe truth instead. As a result, both pastor and people grow in their ability to see reality clearly.