Managing Difficult Staff Relationships – Transcript

Jim Latimer
Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministers: best practices and quick help from interims for interims – wisdom from the field. Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Reverend Philomena Hare. I asked her to speak about managing difficult staff relationships as an interim minister. It’s good to have you, Philomena.

Philomena
Thank you, Jim. Staff, people, relationships. Walking into a congregation as the interim minister, you inherit the congregation and the staff. You inherit their joys and their celebrations. You also inherit their wounds – everything. And so when there is an issue, or a misalignment or a misfit with a key staff or a staff person, I think your best bet is not to shy away from it. How you handle it specifically will probably say something about your leadership and your leadership style. Because chances are, if that staff person is a problem, the congregation is aware of it. And they may be looking to you to handle it. So if you are conflict avoidant, and I don’t know how you could discern to be an interim and not want to dive into conflict. And even if you are conflict avoident, I would still say don’t shy away from it. I mean, there is lots of help in how to manage difficult staff. So if it’s not your strength, don’t try to go it alone, get some help, get some coaching. Most churches don’t have a human resource manager, so you will have to get that elsewhere. But there may be somebody in the congregation who has a human resource background that you can lean on. The congregation is watching to see how you handle it. On the other hand, this may be a staff person that is not high functioning, but the congregation seems to be comfortable with it. That’s why I said walk gingerly, because you’ll want to know if this is a headache that the congregation doesn’t mind having. You know, they can take two aspirin and will be fine….

You have to know yourself and how comfortable you are with conflict, because you may have to be the one that initiates disengaging that person from the church. You want to do it in a way that’s fair and just, and you want to model that for the congregation, because some of them in their ministry places outside of the congregation may be managers, and may find themselves in a similar situation where they have to let someone go. Now, they may not think to come to the pastor to ask, “How do I do it?” but you can model it for them. Because the other piece of it is if you go back and think about all of our resources, all the assets – the volunteers, the minister, the building, the community – these are all the gifts that we have to work with. And if we are supporting someone who is not living up to the contractual arrangements, a part of me says that we’re not being good stewards, both with regard to our gifts, but we’re also being unfair to that individual. We’re not helping them, because they may go to another employer and think that, “Oh, well, the church, let me do this. What’s wrong with you?” It may not necessarily lead to firing, but I’m all for staff evaluation, feedback, and particularly ongoing feedback so that when it comes time for evaluation, there should be no surprises. We should know all along.

Jim Latimer
When you say feedback, do you mean feedback in the context of or with reference to a given job description?

Philomena: Absolutely. It’s got to be tied to something, not just, “I don’t like how you did that.” It should be done in a professional way that that honors people and honors the church.

And again, just as the minister has professional goals that they want to accomplish, I think each individual staff person should have professional goals which are also tied in to the annual evaluation, so that when you come to that you have something to talk about.

Jim Latimer
Exactly. So having a good job description that sets those expectations within the framework of an agreement with a regular – at least annual – formal job review is a key way to help manage difficult relationships, or when someone is in a job that really isn’t suited for them. The interim minister needs to help move things forward. Thank you so much, Philomena for that. That’s a tough one.

Philomena
I was gonna say that. Yes. It’s a difficult one, particularly, or especially if the staff person also holds membership in the congregation. Because if the interim is also the head of staff – because sometimes the minister isn’t – but if you are the head of staff, you are in a supervisory role, but you’re also their pastor. It’s a double bind. You can’t win for losing.

Jim Latimer
That is a tough one. Let’s leave that one for another conversation. That’s an issue of whether or not to hire church members. People will speak to both sides of that. Thank you very much Philomena for sharing your spirit and wisdom with us today. It’s been great.

Philomena
You’re welcome, Jim. This is fun.

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