Dysfunction – “When an effort toward making something better makes it worse.”

Dr. Henry Cloud

Like the slowly developing cracks in a house’s foundation, employees who operate in dysfunctional ways often develop over time. If you start to see it in week one, you likely missed some things during the interview or reference checking process. Often seeking to do their perceived best, dysfunctional employees become aloof to their dysfunction. It doesn’t mean that all hope is lost, but it does mean that you have a leadership challenge on your hands.

Over time with dysfunctional employees, you start to:

• See that their values do not align with your culture.
• Hear complaints from other team members.
• Observe them cheating time, processes, or relationships to get by.
• Watch them respond with passive-aggressive or aggressive tactics.
• Disagree with or even be confused by their excuses.
• See them step outside of the boundaries of their authority.
• Notice them attempting to control difficult conversations at all costs.

Dysfunctional staff members rarely characterize themselves as such. They often think they are in the right and everyone else around them is at fault. They bristle at feedback. They typically aren’t well-liked, but they don’t realize it. And they present one of the most significant challenges for a ministry leader because while they create major problems, they are still a valuable human being created in the Imago Dei.

So what do you do? There is no silver bullet, but here are at least five approaches you can take. Maybe one at a time or maybe in concert.

Lead them by example.
Be who you want them to be. Talk about what you value in their presence. Accusing others of doublespeak is the primary weapon in a dysfunctional person’s arsenal, so take away the weapon. They will do whatever it takes to deflect from their out-of-bounds bahavior.

Try partnering them with another team member who is patient and kind and can be a significant influence over them. Give them books, offer resources, and send them to conferences or workshops that will put them face-to-face with their deficiencies. Your measure of candor about these opportunities is up to you.

Lead them by rewarding what you want repeated.
Let them see others who serve faithfully be rewarded. Use those rewards and times of acknowledgment as ways to reinforce expectations, appropriate behavior, and culture. Give this person a chance to see with their own eyes what is acceptable and what is not.

You have to be careful about how you reward the dysfunctional person as well. They should receive praise for the things they do right and well. But be careful; you can be enthusiastic about the “win” in such a way that it overshadows their insufficiencies in their own mind. Encouragement is almost always a helpful tool, but not so much that it helps the person paint an unrealistic view of themselves.

Lead them by raising their self-awareness and offering a pathway to change.
If more indirect routes do not seem effective, then you likely have a person who lacks self-awareness. It may be that they are repressing what they know to be true. It may be that they act out of a miscalibrated instinct. It may be that no one has ever had the courage to confront them with their weaknesses.

What do you do? You sit them down and engage in a serious and intentional conversation. You skip the small talk and make a bigger deal about it. Tell them that you want to see them succeed, but you have observed areas in their work, character, habits, or whatever that are detrimental to the team. Be clear, kind, and direct. Ask them if they understand what you are telling them. Give them a chance to respond, but be clear that your view will not change unless they change their behaviors and you will not be convinced to think otherwise.

Lead them with objective measures of success.
Now that you are at the end of this crucial conversation, it’s time to help the rubber meet the road. If you walk out of the room with misunderstandings about what is next, what they need to do differently, and how you will both know the goal has been met, you’ve wasted your time.

At the end of the conversation, provide a written game plan. Note what you expect them to improve and why. Note that you will make this a topic of regular discussion as they work on improving. Set some timelines for goals to be achieved. Follow up on their progress for longer than you want to. Celebrate the wins and progress. Getting them to embrace new habits and character is a process.

It is certainly intensive on the front end, but don’t just “check the box” with them over a 3-month improvement process and never bring it back up again. They are likely to slide back into old patterns. They will either embrace the accountability or pave the way for their exit. Make sure your process at this stage leaves only those two options on the table.

If you can’t lead them to change, lead them out the door.
If they do not rise to the occasion, you’ll need to make a hard call. Sometimes a departure is the only rational end to this complicated situation. Often, we should get to this point long before we do because the consequences of letting a dysfunctional staff member linger on the team are a mountain compared to dealing with it swiftly and leaving it in the past.

When you have to lead them off of your team, do so as graciously as possible. Offboarding a team member, whether by their choice or yours, is one of the most important moments in your leadership journey. Take the high road.

Even with the best interviewing, hiring, onboarding, and training practices, all of us will spend time leading a dysfunctional team member or two. I think you will find that the practices outlined above will help you navigate those relationships with wisdom, truth, and grace.