The Termination You're Delaying Is Hurting Everyone Else

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, host Todd Rhoades addresses the difficult topic of delaying necessary terminations within a church team. He explains how failing to make timely decisions negatively impacts both high-performing staff and the overall team culture. Todd shares three signs that indicate it's time to act on a termination and offers advice on how to handle these tough conversations to maintain a healthy and effective ministry environment. • Delaying terminative decisions punishes your team. • High performers carry extra burden and grow resentful. • Failure to act leads to a culture of mediocrity. • Three signs it's time to terminate: repeated conversations with no change, staff questioning decisions, more time managing deficiencies. • Resignation relief indicates a need to act. • Leadership requires courage and timely action. • Contact Todd Rhoades for further advice.

Have questions or comments?  Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com

Be sure to subscribe to The Healthy Church Staff Podcast wherever you regularly listen to podcasts.

- - - - -

Is Your Church Hiring?
If your church is searching for a new staff member, reach out to Todd for a conversation on how he might be able to help.

Are You Looking for a New Ministry Role?
If you are open to a new church role in the next few months, add your free resume and profile at ChemistryStaffing.com.

Transcript

The Staff Problem Everyone Sees

SPEAKER_00 0:08

You've probably known for months, maybe even longer. You've got that one staff member, they're not hitting it, everybody knows it, and you keep thinking maybe they'll turn it around, but they're just not. Maybe God'll do something. Maybe you just need to give them one more chance. Meanwhile, all the rest of your team is watching, and they're wondering why excellence doesn't seem to matter anymore around here. And if that sounds familiar, if you're in the middle of this knowing you gotta do something, but not wanting to do it, or just feeling like you're stymied right where you are and stuck, you're in the right place because we're gonna talk about that today here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at chemistry staffing.com. At Chemistry Staffing.com, we do this kind of as our mission. We help churches with their staffing and hiring and firing, and you can find all that over at the website, chemistry staffing.com. But today we're gonna talk specifically about delaying

Delay Punishes Your Best People

SPEAKER_00 1:10

a termination, delaying a firing that you know and you have known probably needs to happen. Here's what's happening. Your compassion for one person is punishing everyone else. Every day you delay is another day your high performers carry extra weight. They're covering gaps, they're redoing work, they're managing around the problem, and chances are they're exhausted. And you think they're being kind to the struggling staff member, but you're being unfair to everybody else by not making a decision because chances are they all know that a decision needs to be made and should have been made, and they're looking to you to make it. Here's the thing though, they're not just tired, they're starting to resent you for not making the decision that you need to make. So while you tolerate underperformance by the one person that everybody's looking at, you're teaching a lesson that you don't really intend to, but you are. You're saying it doesn't really matter if you do great work around here. You're saying loyalty to a warm body matters more than mission. And honestly, your rock stars, those people that are on fire on your staff, start thinking, why am I killing myself here? If it's acceptable. It creates a culture where trying hard

Grace Versus Enabling

SPEAKER_00 2:35

just kind of feels foolish. And mediocrity, believe it or not, becomes the ceiling. And now I know your heart. I know you're trying to build, you're not trying to build a mediocre culture. You're trying to be gracious, you're trying to honor people, that's good. But there's a difference between grace and enabling. I remember a long time ago I heard heard Andy Stanley when he talked about having to let somebody go off of his team. He told them I don't know if he actually coined this phrase or if he even uses it, or maybe it was just something that rolled off his lips, but it stuck with me. He said, I told them that I was going to free their future. And I thought that was a kind of an interesting way to say you're fired. But freeing your future is really what you need to do. Real compassion is about telling the truth, and it doesn't leave somebody in a role where they're failing and everybody knows it. That's not kindness, that's actually cruelty, just disguised as patience. Patrick Lencioni says that the most dysfunctional thing a leader can do is avoid difficult conversations. And because every day you avoid it, the six situation gets worse for everybody, including the person who needs to go. They need their future

Three Signs It Is Time

SPEAKER_00 3:52

freed. They know they're struggling most of the time, they feel the tension, they see the looks. You're not protecting them, you're actually prolonging their pain, and you're teaching your best people that you don't have the courage to actually step up and lead and make the decision that you need to make. So maybe I'm being harsh here. I don't mean to be harsh. So let me kind of back up here a little bit. So how do you know how do you know when it's time? Let me suggest for you three signs that it's time to act. Okay. Number one, you've had the conversation more than once and nothing has changed. If you've been clear about your expectations, if you've offered support and there's still no movement, that's your answer. Hope is not a strategy. So if you've already had the conversation more than once and nothing's changed, guess what? It's time number two. Other staff members are asking you, either directly or indirectly, why this person is still here. When your team starts quietly questioning your judgment, you've waited too long. Okay? So if you start to get feedback from other staff about why is that person still here, it's time. And then number three, you're spending more time managing their deficiencies than celebrating their contributions. If the balance has tipped, and if you're in damage control mode more than you're in development mode, it's time. It's over. You can't coach

The Relief Question

SPEAKER_00 5:22

someone into a completely different gifting or a completely different character. Here's the gut check. The question that I think you really need to ask. And maybe this will help you process this a little bit, because let's face it, firing somebody is it's tough. It's the worst part of ministry. So here's the question you really need to ask. Is the if this person came to you today and resigned, would you feel relief? If the person came to you today and handed you the resignation, would you feel relieved? Now be honest. If your first thought is, oh, thank God, you already know what needs to happen. You're not hoping they'll improve, you're hoping they'll leave on their own, you're hoping that they walk into your office and hand you a resignation. That's not leadership. That is avoidance, and your team is paying the price.

Courage Protects The Mission

SPEAKER_00 6:19

So, what this does to your best people, your high performers don't need you to be perfect, but they do need you to be courageous. They need to know that when something's broken, that you, as their leader, as their supervisor are going to fix it. They need to see that their effort matters, that standards exist, and that you will, above all, protect the mission. And if you don't, they will start looking for the door. And you end up losing the wrong people. They leave all the while you're keeping the person that just because of the three things I just told you, shouldn't even be there anymore. Think about that. You delay a hard decision to avoid hurting one person, and in the process, you lose three great people who got tired of carrying all of the load. So here's the bottom line for today. Delaying a necessary termination is not compassion, it's actually cowardice. And your best people are watching. Your team is waiting for you to leave. Don't make them wait any longer. I know this is tough stuff. This one stings. But I also know that you care about your team, and that's why you're listening. And if this helped, I'm grateful if maybe you have more questions right now than what you did seven minutes and 51 seconds ago when you started listening to this podcast. I'd love to have a conversation with you. I'd love to give you some pointers and some tips on what we see, great ways to, if you

Bottom Line And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 7:47

have to let somebody go, if you're just stuck and you just need somebody to talk to about this, I'd love to talk with you about it. See if there's any way that we can help. Podcast at chemistry staffing.com is my email. I read every email that comes in and respond to every meal email as well. I respond to meals too. I love meals. All right. That's it for today. Uh, hope this has been helpful. Join us here again tomorrow, right here on the W Church Deck Podcast.