The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
When Good Staff Leave Bad Situations
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Not every staff departure is a disaster. Today on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, we're gonna unpack the reality that even sometimes great team members just have to leave unhealthy church environments. Maybe you see yourself in that exact position today. This podcast is for you. We're gonna learn how to evaluate these exits, hopefully with some clarity and what healthy resignations can teach us and how to prevent good people from feeling forced out. Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders over chemistrystaffing.com, and I'm so glad you're joining us right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. When a good staff member leaves, the whispers start. What happened? Did they mess up? Were they burned out? But here's the thing not every departure is a scandal. And sometimes the best staff walk away because the environment was no longer healthy. So let's talk about what that means and how your church can grow in it. Okay. So good people can leave for good reasons. It's not always burnout or incompetence or sins. Sometimes it's cultural misalignment. Sometimes it's a theological misalignment. Sometimes it's a value shift in leadership, or maybe a long-standing dysfunction that's just been a burr that there's really no hope of change. Maybe it's a family need. Excuse me, a family need that requires relocation. Staff, healthy staff, good staff, often hang on longer than they should, maybe out of loyalty, but eventually they choose to step away for their own health. They just have to. So what does this teach us about culture, about the culture that they left when the good people leave? Often it's a mirror, not a mistake. Did they feel heard? Was their feedback ignored? Were they supported? Uh, did they have clarity on what success looked like? All of these things, man, we've talked about all these things in depth here on the podcast over the past three years. And it's really important because if people aren't heard, if their feedback is ignored, if they weren't supported, and if they just don't have clarity on what success looks like, what the rules of the game are, even what game we've talked about this, what game are we even playing here? If all of those things or some of those things are left unanswered, good people, when they don't have answers, eventually are gonna move on. And what their exit, when they do leave, their exit might expose what others have been quietly enduring. And sometimes the healthiest move someone can make is just walking away from an unhealthy system, or at least an unhealthy system for them. So, what should churches do instead of getting defensive when people leave? Good people that you want to have on your team and you're really disappointed. What should you do? I always think it's great. I maybe it's morbid, but I always like to say you need to do an autopsy whenever there's a resignation. You need to do an autopsy and see exactly what happened here and ask some good questions. What would what could we have done differently? Very few churches do exit interviews. Very few. I think every church, whenever there's a resignation, there should be an exit interview. And ask questions, honest questions, not polite questions, but honest questions. Because you need to know what that person experienced. You need to know, could we have done anything differently? Sometimes you could. Sometimes you knew you could and you didn't do it. Sometimes you had no clue what you could have done. But you need to, that's incredibly valuable information. And don't let that go out the door with a staff person. You really need to know so that you can say, what could we have done differently? Because there may be some things that you do need to do differently. You need to protect the narrative as well. Don't villainize the person that left. Man, how many churches have I seen that have absolutely villainized the person that left? Blackballed them right out of town. Don't do that. Don't do that. Even if it's not a healthy transition, man, that's that does not represent the gospel and it doesn't represent the person. I don't care what they did. You need to protect and not villainize the person who's leaving. You need to look at patterns. Is this a one-off thing or is this a trend? Sometimes, and this is unfortunately true. Sometimes churches, because they don't ask the right questions, they don't do the exit interviews, and they're not very introspective or self-aware. It will take a good number of staff people to leave if you're in a larger church over a good period of time. Maybe you'll have three people leave in a year, and then maybe eight in two years. You need to see, is this a one-off? Because if you get seven or eight people that are leaving your staff in a couple years, it's not a one-off, I'm telling you. There's some kind of a trend going on there, and you need to figure it out. Okay. And then finally, build a culture where staff don't have to choose between faithfulness and self-preservation. It just healthy churches don't act like that. You can't just fix the symptoms. You have to address the system. All right, here's the final thought and kind of the big idea for today. When good people leave, don't panic, but you do need to pay attention. Their story might be a wake-up call for you and your church. I'd love to hear from you. Drop me a comment today, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. What's one thing that your church has learned from a D a recent staff resignation? What's one thing that you've learned? To do or not to do? Something you should have changed. If you need any help in this area, I'd love to be a resource for your church. Contact me at podcast at chemistry staffing.com. We do it, an exit interview. If you would like us to conduct an exit interview, a third-party exit interview, when you have a staff resignation, reach out to me. I'll set you up and we can get that going for you. Whether you do it or whether you have somebody like chemistry staffing do an exit interview is just incredibly vitally important. And maybe you're stuck smack dab in the middle of what appears to be a trend of people leaving. And you're like, Todd, I just need I need to talk to somebody about figuring out how we can figure out what's happening here and how to reverse this trend because their trajectory is not good. I'd love to hear from you. Love to set up a conversation. Reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right, that's it for today. I hope you've enjoyed today's podcast. Drop me a line, podcast at chemistry staffing. Let me know maybe some ideas that you'd like for us to talk about here on the podcast. Love to hear your input. All right, that's it for today. Thanks so much for joining me, and we'll be right back here tomorrow on the Healthy Church Podcast.
