Stop Hoarding Talent

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff podcast, host Todd Rhoades discusses the issue of talent hoarding within church staffs. This phenomenon occurs when leaders hold on too tightly to talented team members, often out of fear or comfort, potentially stifling growth and causing burnout among staff. Todd explores why this dysfunction happens, its consequences, and provides strategies for fostering a healthy church culture that encourages empowering and releasing leaders.• Talent hoarding involves retaining gifted team members too tightly, motivated by fear, comfort, or control.• Constantly overloading gifted individuals can lead to burnout or push them away.• Failing to give newer staff development opportunities can stunt their growth.• Holding onto talent can harm church culture, reduce trust, and restrict leadership development.• Implementing a culture that celebrates staff growth and departure is essential.• Building a leadership pipeline prevents reliance on a few individuals.• Leaders should focus on launching, not owning, team members' talents.

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Chapters

• 0:08 Naming Talent Hoarding
• 0:23 Why It Happens and The Cost
• 1:05 Real-World Signs You’re Hoarding
• 1:41 Consequences for Culture and Growth
• 2:24 Building a Release Culture
• 3:15 Leadership Pipelines and Calling
• 3:56 Stewardship vs. Ownership
• 4:00 How to Reach Us + Free Assessment

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:08

There's a quiet dysfunction that can creep into any church staff, and that's talent hoarding. What is talent hoarding on a church staff? Well, it's when leaders hold on to gifted team members too tightly, either out of fear or comfort or control. And today on the podcast, we're going to unpack why this happens, the damage that it can cause, and how healthy churches learn to be a little bit more open to release and empower leaders rather than to trap them. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders over at ChemistryStaffing.com, and I'm your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Are you intentionally hoarding your most gifted people? You might think you're protecting your ministry, but you might actually be suffocating it. So today we're going to talk about this subtle trap of holding on too tightly and how it prevents your team and your church potentially from growing. All right, so what in the world are you talking about, Todd, when you talk about talent hoarding? What does that even look like? Let me give you some examples. Maybe you give the same person every new responsibility because you trust them. Right? They're competent, so you just keep giving them more and more. Maybe you say no to external opportunities for team members, maybe to lead or speak elsewhere. Maybe you fear letting somebody lead too much because they might outshine you, or maybe even leave. Or sometimes it's even framed as loyal to your stewardship, but as its core, it's beer. Okay, so let's talk about the consequences. What are the consequences of what we're talking about today, hoarding talent? You tend to burn out your best people by overloading them, and sometimes you even quietly push them away, especially the high capacity leaders who end up feeling stuck or micromanaged. And you can stunt the development of newer staff who never really get the chance to rise. This is the message you're sending. You might not mean to, but this is the message that you're sending. You're only valuable if you're under my control. Okay? That's the hoarding part of it. And eventually, your culture will freeze, your trust will drop, and the bench that you have gets really thin. Alright, so how do you lead with open hands? Let me give you some examples. I think there are some things that you can do. I think release, create a release culture. Okay. Celebrate when staff grow. Celebrate when staff leave. This is probably the biggest indicator of whether or not you're a hoarder when it comes to staff. Are you developing them to the point that they outgrew you and they move on? Do you celebrate when they grow? And here's the telltale sign, it's a big warning sign. And you can think about the last people that have left your team. Did you celebrate that? You can be a little sad that they're leaving, but did you celebrate that staff person is actually God is going to use them in a great way, just not where you are. So that's the first thing. Over the long term, what do you need to do? You need to build a leadership pipeline so that you're not always relying on the same two or three people. You need to have honest conversations with a lot of people about calling and development and future dreams. Here's a question that might help you, and you can ask this regularly. If is to yourself. So great leadership isn't just about collecting people, it's about launching them. And you're not called to own people's gifts, you're called to steward them. So, who is it on your team that needs to be stretched, not just retained? I'd love to hear any comments you've got about today's podcast. You can reach out to me anytime, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. If there's any way that I can help your church, cultivate healthy church staff environments, or find news team members, anything like that, so reach out to me, podcast at chemistrystaffing.com. I'd love to hear from you. And you can take our free church staff assessment. It's open right now at churchstaffassessment.com. I think it'd be really helpful for you if you could take it, and then we'll have our full report right after the first video. All right, that's it for today. Hope you have a great day.