Coach Before You Correct, Correct Before You Release

The day will come when one of your people is not meeting the standard. They are showing up late. They are skipping training. They are freelancing on the floor instead of running the plan. Your team is watching to see what you do about it.

Here is the order that has served me: coach before you correct, correct before you release. Most leaders get this backwards. They either ignore the problem until they are furious and then drop the hammer, or they avoid the conversation entirely and let the rest of the team carry the dead weight. Both kill a volunteer team.

Start with coaching. Most of the time the person does not know they are off standard, or they have something going on at home you know nothing about. A quiet, direct, one-on-one conversation fixes more problems than any policy ever will. This is Matthew 18, by the way. Go to your brother or sister first, just the two of you.

Most people, when you treat them like an adult and tell them the truth, rise to meet it.

If coaching does not take, you correct. That means it gets more formal. You bring in the team lead, you put the expectation in writing, and you document the conversation. Not to build a case against them, but because if this ever ends in a release, you owe it to everyone, including them, to have handled it honestly and on the record.

And sometimes, after all of that, you have to release someone off the team. I have had to do it. It is the single hardest part of this job, harder than any confrontation with an outsider, because these are brothers and sisters who volunteered to serve. But a safety team holds a standard that protects children and families, and a leader who will not hold that standard is not being kind. He is just avoiding a hard conversation at the church's expense.

Here is the part that keeps it Christian: releasing someone from the team is not the same as casting them out of the church. The door to the relationship stays open. I have released people from the team and still shaken their hand on a Sunday and meant it.

You are taking away an assignment, not a soul.

The whole arc, coach, correct, release, only works if you start it early and walk it in order. Skip the coaching and you are just punishing people. Skip the documentation and you have no idea why you are three conversations deep with the same person. Skip the release when it is finally warranted and the rest of your team learns the standard is fake.

Coach, correct, release, in that order, every time.

To sum up: go to them privately first. If it does not take, make it formal and write it down. If it still does not take, release them off the team with the door to the relationship still open. Coach, correct, release, in that order, every time. Lead it like a pastor and a standards-holder at the same time, because the job requires both.