The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
We're all about helping create a healthy, positive, and spiritually positive environment for church staff members and leadership teams.
The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
When to Fire Someone on Your Church Staff
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.
Firing someone on your church staff is never easy and it's never something you should rush, but on the other hand, waiting too long can be just as damaging. And today, on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, I want to walk through some of the red flags, some of the prayerful discernment and some of the leadership clarity that you need to know when you think it's time to let somebody go. It's not just about the staff member, it's about the health of your entire church and the health of your entire team. So we're going to look at that today. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes. We're the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and I'm also your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff podcast.
Speaker 1:All right, no one goes into the ministry dreaming of firing someone at least, hopefully, you didn't but sometimes not making the hard call does more damage than letting somebody go. And today we're going to talk about some of the most difficult leadership decisions that you'll ever face in ministry, and what I'm talking about is knowing when it's time to remove someone from your church staff team. All right, First of all, you have to come to some clarity. You have to have clarity before you take action when you're thinking about terminating a staff member. If you're not sure whether or not to hire someone, a staff member, If you're not sure whether or not to fire someone guess what You're not ready to fire them. That doesn't mean the situation isn't serious. It means that you need to do the work of discernment. You need to ask yourself some really key questions. Number one have I clearly communicated expectations to this person on my team? If they're murky, if I feel like I've not clearly communicated expectations, or I feel like they might be murky or they don't know exactly what's expected, man, you need to hold back. You need to hold back, Okay. Another question have they had adequate time and adequate support to improve? You shouldn't just fire somebody just to fire them. You shouldn't just fire them without any notice. Have you communicated your expectations and have they had adequate time and have you provided support, either personally or with some other mentor or some other team member? Have you given them the time and support that they've needed to improve?
Speaker 1:Another question are there moral issues or relational issues, or are there performance-based issues? Each one of these is really important. You need to know, before you go in to fire somebody, what you're firing them. You would think this is common knowledge, but sometimes I ask somebody somebody just said I had to fire somebody. Why'd you fire them? And they have a hard time answering the question. So is it a moral issue? Is relational people that just don't fit well on the team, or is a performance base? They're just not able to do the job. And then you need to ask yourself, hey, is this a pattern or is this a one-off? If it's a one-off, then you probably need to do a little bit more work, okay?
Speaker 1:Second thing you need to do is you need to seek wise counsel. You should never make firing or termination decisions in your own bubble. Seek wise counsel. Pray Document Firing without clarity is reaction and firing with clarity is leadership. Okay, so let's talk about we talk. There's two different things you can do. You can fire too quickly or you can fire too slowly. So let's talk about. We talked about firing too quickly in the last section.
Speaker 1:This time I want to talk about the cost of avoidance or waiting too long. So if you keep the wrong person on your team too long, some stuff's going to happen. Right. It's going to hurt the morale of your team. If you keep somebody too long, it's going to damage trust. If everybody else on your team thinks why is that person still here? It's going to slow momentum and it just sends the wrong message to the rest of your team. Sometimes the healthiest move for the church is the hardest move for the leader. Let me repeat that because that's really key and vital here Sometimes, sometimes the healthiest move for your church is going to be the hardest move for you as the leader. Okay, my next point is when you know, when you're sure, when you've done your due diligence and you've given them opportunities, when you know it's time to let a person go, you need to move forward with compassion and courage. Okay, Once the decision is made maybe it's by you, maybe it's by your board, maybe it's by your elder team, maybe it's by your leadership team but once the decision is made, don't delay, you need to do it. Okay, Don't outsource it unless it's necessary. This is one of those things.
Speaker 1:I'm a strong proponent of delegation and outsourcing, but this is something you need to do yourself. Because it's a big deal. Okay, you can't outsource this unless it's absolutely necessary. If it makes sense organizationally, Okay. But if it's something you know you need to do organizationally, okay. But if it's something you know you need to do, you need to do it.
Speaker 1:I once had to hop on a plane and fly all the way to Dallas, Texas, to terminate an employee. I could have done it over Zoom, I could have had someone else on the team do it, but it was the right thing to do. It was hard, it was messy, it was not taken well, it was expensive, but it was the right thing to do. I didn't outsource it because it was necessary. The next thing you need to do once you've made the decision is don't make it personal, okay, Don't make it personal. You need to communicate with kindness and honesty and clarity, but don't make it personal. You need to communicate with kindness and honesty and clarity, but don't make it personal. Give them dignity on the way out and any way that you can help them if you can, and care for them. Care for your team.
Speaker 1:Even the right decisions can still leave a mark and here at Chemistry, one of the things that we do offer as a service and I'd love to serve your church in this area if you ever have a person that you need to terminate is we will come alongside after that termination and provide them with 90 days of kind of soul care. It's career counseling. It's soul care, Because once you terminate the person, you are by and large, going to lose your ability to build into that person. And all firings are different. Sometimes you fire somebody because it's a budget issue or because you hate to do it. They're a great person, you love them, but it's just not working out. Other times firings happen more out of conflict and it's not going to go well and it doesn't go well Either of those scenarios. Once you make the call, once you have the meeting and you terminate the person, you personally and your church lose the opportunity to speak into that candidate. So if you'd be interested, you can reach out to me at podcastchemistrystaffingcom. Just when you have a need, when you've had to terminate someone and you want your church to care for them, because they're children of God, they're important to Jesus and they need to be important to you even after the termination, If you need to have somebody come alongside and provide that career and calling, counseling and soul care. That's something that we can do here at Chemistry Staffing, Because even the right decision, even if it goes well, it's still going to leave a mark. It's going to leave a mark. Nobody likes to be fired. Okay, I know that Nobody likes to be fired. Okay, All right. Here's the bottom line, the final thought for today Firing somebody isn't a failure, but avoiding the hard conversation might be.
Speaker 1:You are called to lead, not just manage, and sometimes that means protecting your church and your culture at all costs. And, unfortunately, sometimes it means sometimes you have to let some people off your team. I believe Andy Stanley I heard him say this and it's always stuck with me. He says I need to free your future. That's his nice way of saying pack your bags.
Speaker 1:I would love to hear from you. Maybe you've been fired and it went really well. It's like I was fired but I was cared for. I would love to hear your story. Maybe the exact opposite is true. I would love to hear your story as well. If there's any way I can help your church navigate, maybe even through the steps of should I terminate this person? Do I have grounds to terminate? Reach out to me Any of those things I would love to hear from you. You can send me an email to start the conversation podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. All right, that's it for today. Hope this was helpful to you. I hope you don't need the advice, but I hope, if you do need the advice that. It's helpful to you and we'll be back here again next week right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Have a great day.
