When the Board Wants Them Gone But You Don't: Navigating Termination Pressure

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff podcast, Todd Rhoades discusses the challenging position of being caught between a church board's demands and the reality faced by staff members. The episode explores how to handle pressure when the board wants swift action, such as terminating a staff member, and the importance of proposing a 90-day improvement plan to ensure decisions are made wisely and defensibly.• Discusses the 'squeeze play' in church leadership where one is caught between board demands and staff reality.• Highlights the pressure to fire staff prematurely versus maintaining credibility with the board.• Suggests requesting a 90-day period for improvement plans and measurable goals.• Emphasizes the importance of making every decision defensible rather than saving every job.• Promotes maintaining integrity as a leader while navigating these challenging situations.

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Transcript

Host Intro And Context

Defining The Leadership Tension

The 90-Day Integrity Move

Hard Conversations And Outcomes

Bottom Line And Broader Application

Closing And Listener Invite

SPEAKER_00 0:09

You're sitting in the board meeting, the board tells you it's a really harsh meeting. They want Sarah to gone by Friday. And you know that Sarah's struggling, but she's not good. You still see potential. All the board sees are problems. And now you're caught between your conscience and your boss, the board. Does this ever happen? Can't happen in some churches because of different polity, but it happens in churches, and we're going to talk about it today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders. Over at chemistrystaffing.com, you're listening to episode number 568, if you can believe it. 568. So if you're new to the podcast, you got a lot of catching up to do. I hope you'll listen to a few of the past ones as well. Today we're going to talk about one of the loneliest positions in church leadership. It's the squeeze play. You're the buffer between the board's impatience and your staff members' reality. Everybody expects you to be the executioner. But you're the only one that knows the whole story. Here's what usually goes wrong in these moments. We cave to the pressure and fire somebody who could have been saved, or we dig in our heels and lose credibility with our board and our leadership. We start playing politics instead of leading with wisdom, and a staff member becomes a pawn in a power game. And guess what? Trust just erodes on every level. Now, the board isn't evil for wanting resort results. But speed isn't always the same as wisdom. So what do you do in this situation when you've bored? Maybe it's not a staff firing, maybe it's something else, but the board wants you to just move on it right away. Here's an integrity move that you can make. Just ask for 90 days. Ask for 90 days and a clear improvement plan. That way you're not like jumping the gun and doing something that you know you shouldn't do, but you're also not saying no. You're saying, I I can I can I just get a can we just take a little bit of a breather here? Can I get 90 days and try and work through this with a clear improvement plan in the case of the staff member? And then put it in writing. Measurable goals, specific benchmarks, tell the board, hey, if we're gonna make this move, let's make it bulletproof. Let's do it the right way. Most boards, not every board, believe me, not every board, most boards will respect that type of a data-driven approach. And what this allows you to do is it allows you to buy a little bit of time and also get to the truth. You can tell them, hey, I need to be able to sleep at night with this decision. Let's make sure that we can defend this decision to the congregation. Hey, what if we're wrong? What's our exposure here? Those are all questions that heated boards sometimes don't take into consideration. And when you give those the give them those kind of considerations, they're not stall tactics. They are legitimate leadership questions. And then you need to have the hard conversation. At least you're not having the you're fired conversation, at least not just yet, but you need to follow up and you need to sit down with your staff member and you need to be absolutely brutally honest about where they stand and give them the chance to step up or step out. And sometimes people surprise you when they know what's at stake. Sometimes they surprise you when nothing changes, and 90 days later you end up making the call as well. Your integrity as a leader in these situations, in the these squeeze plays, is being tested, right? The board is watching how you handle pressure, and your staff is watching how you protect people. Both matter, both matter for your long-term effectiveness. Here's the bottom line for today. The goal isn't to save every job, it's to make every decision defensible. And like I said, this can be not just for a staff decision. This can be for something that your board or somebody else, your supervisor, wants you to initiate or a decision that they want you to make. And if you just if you're ready to make the decision, then make the decision. But if you're not, then I think that 90-day, I wouldn't call it this to their face, but a cooling off period where you make sure that you're making the right decision and that everybody's everybody's covered when you do make that decision. That's just a wise leadership move. Leading in the middle is never easy, but your integrity matters more than your comfort. All right, that's it for today. My name's Todd Rhodes. You're listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. We're here every Monday through Friday, every weekday, for about five to eight minutes. We're about five minutes and twenty-three seconds in here today. I'd love to hear from you. If you've got any topics that you'd like to hear on the podcast, you can reach out to me at my website, todd.church, and I would love to hear from you. There's a little contact form there on that page where you can get a hold of me. All right, that's it for today. I hope you'll join me right back here again today. Or right back here again tomorrow. Unless you're a new user and you still have those 567 episodes to catch up on. Go do that now, and uh maybe you'll have them all done by the time we meet again tomorrow. All right, thanks. Have a great day.