The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
The Invisible Ceiling on Your Church Staff
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Ever feel like your church team has hit a wall, no matter how talented or committed they are. There's just there seems to be a limit as to how far they can go. That limit might not be skill or falling, might just be a leadership limit. Today on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, we're going to talk about the invisible ceiling that you may have placed over your staff without even realizing it and how to break through before you lose the very people that you're counting on. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders over chemistrystaffing.com, and I'm your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast every weekday. Right here where you listen to it right now. All right. Your team isn't lazy and they're not entitled. They're not even burned out, at least yet. But for some reason they've just stopped growing. And whether you realize it or not, the reason could be you. Stick around because today we're going to be talking about invisible ceilings and unspoken lids and the quiet ways that many times leaders limit the very staff that they at the same time are praying for. So the growth ceiling is something that most people don't mean to create. Most church leaders don't intentionally cap their staff or put this top on their leadership. But it can happen when, for example, one person makes all the decisions, or maybe things just get a little stagnant, the titles stay fixed for years, or even as other roles evolve, maybe there's no clear direction or for advancement or responsibility of loaders of ownership. But here's the deal: if there's no ladder, the best people will look for somewhere else to climb. And if there's no ladder where you're at, they might look somewhere else to climb. So this usually does show up before people quit, though. A lot of times we just don't see the signs of it. Here's some of the signs that there could be some flat performance issues despite high potential. Man, they're still doing a great job, but they're just not going out of their way. They're just not reaching their potential because they're really high potential people. And everything maybe for the last six months or a year just seems flat all of a sudden. Maybe people are pulling back or avoiding initiative, maybe taking on some extra work that they used to do six months or a year ago. Quiet resumes get sent out, yep, even from the ones that you trust. And an unspoken sense that the only way to grow is to leave is a surefire way that those resumes start going out. Now, this doesn't mean that your employees or your staff are being disloyal. It just means that they're stuck. And you might be the one that's keeping them there. All right, Todd, how do you lift this lid without giving everything up or losing control? There are some pretty simple ways, I think, that you can do this. You can break this ceiling that you may be imposing even unknowingly on your staff. The first way is just to identify your top two or three future leaders. The two or three people on your staff, if you have a larger staff, maybe if you have a smaller staff, maybe it's just one person. Identify that that future leader and give them some real challenges. Give them some things that they can really kind of sink their teeth into so that they don't get bored, so that they know that, hey, I'm depending on you to be a valuable member of this team. First of all, identify. Maybe it's one, maybe it's two, maybe it's three future leaders that they're leaders now, but you think that they've got great potential for the future and give them something that they can just, it's gonna be a real challenge for them. Create new roles. Maybe you need to do that, even if they're not on the org chart just yet. Or maybe you just need to rotate leadership of key initiatives and kind of shake things up a little bit to stretch some different members of your team. But I do know this, conversations have to happen. One-on-one conversations about their future, even before they ask. If you wait for them to come and ask a question about what their future is gonna look like, it may be too late. And yes, sometimes the best move is to help them grow into a new role elsewhere with your blessings. I see churches do this all the time. But I also see some churches, many churches that just don't. Matter of fact, if you're not gonna be here on on Team Marchurch, then you're on your own. But I'm telling you, leadership, true leadership, is not about keeping people. It's about releasing people well when it's the right time. Okay, final thought for today. Growth-minded staff don't need perks. They need possibilities. Let me repeat that, because I think that's important. Growth-minded staff don't need perks. Perks are nice, but they don't need perks. What they need is possibilities. I'd love to hear from you today. What kind of invisible ceilings have you seen? Maybe that you've experienced on a church staff. I'd love to hear that. You can send me your comment, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. And as the year winds down, if there's any way that I can help your church, as you get set for 2026, maybe some staff hiring, maybe some budgeting of staff and personnel costs, any of those kind of things. Those are what we do at Chemistry Staffing. So if there's any way that I can personally help your church, I'd love for you to reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right, that's it for today. I hope you'll join me again right here tomorrow on the Healthy Church Bands. Have a great day.
