Frustrated with a Member of Your Team? Ask This Before You Act.
Sara was frustrated with her bookkeeper.
Every month, the same chaos. Teachers collecting cash for pizza sales, field trips, and classroom supplies. Each in their own way, on their own timeline. Money stuffed in envelopes. Receipts scribbled on sticky notes. Reimbursement requests showing up a week late with half the details missing.
By the time anything reached the bookkeeper's desk, nothing reconciled cleanly. Parents were asking questions. The board wanted answers. And Sara had heard enough.
She was ready to let the bookkeeper go.
But before she acted, someone asked her a question she hadn't thought to ask herself.
The Default Diagnosis
Principals are trained to evaluate people. You observe, assess, and draw conclusions about performance. That's the job.
But when something breaks down operationally, that training becomes a liability. The first explanation that feels obvious: this person isn't cutting it. That's not always the right one.
Here's what plays out in Christian schools more than you'd think: the same role turns over two, three, sometimes four times. Different people, same problems. The principal keeps asking "Is this a performance issue?" and keeps arriving at the same answer. What never gets asked is the question underneath it.
Is there even a system in place?
The Two-Question Diagnostic
Before any personnel conversation, before any coaching plan, before any difficult decision, run this sequence.
Question 1: Is there a functioning system? Clear inputs. Documented processes. Defined accountability checkpoints. Handoff protocols that don't live in someone's head.
Question 2: If yes, is the person performing within it? This is where performance evaluation belongs. Not before.
Sequence matters. You cannot fairly assess performance inside a broken system. If the system is absent or dysfunctional, you don't have a personnel problem yet. You have a design problem.
Back to Sara
When someone finally asked Sara the first question, she paused.
There was no system. Teachers had never been given a standard process for handling off-budget transactions. No form. No dropbox. No submission window. The bookkeeper hadn't been failing to follow the system. There had never been a system to follow.
So Sara built one. A standard form for every off-budget transaction. A dropbox outside the office. A 24-hour submission window after any money changed hands. Nothing elaborate. Just a repeatable process that finally gave her bookkeeper what she needed to do the job.
And that's when the second problem became visible.
With a functioning system in place, it became clear the bookkeeper still couldn't execute consistently. The structure was there. The follow-through wasn't. Sara had her answer, and it was a different answer than she started with.
She eventually made the hard call. But she made it with clarity, not frustration. She knew the system worked. She knew the problem was performance. And the next person she hired stepped into a structure that was actually ready for them.
Without that one question, Sara would have let the bookkeeper go, hired someone new, and handed them the same broken process. Nothing would have changed.
What a Functioning System Actually Looks Like
A system isn't a policy buried in a handbook. It's a repeatable process that works regardless of who's running it.
For any operational role in your school, ask:
Does this person know exactly what they're responsible for, and when?
Are there documented handoff points so nothing falls through the cracks?
Could someone new step into this role and execute it from documentation alone?
If the answer to any of those is no, you don't have a system. You have a person holding things together with effort and institutional memory. That works until it doesn't.
Build the system before you evaluate the person running it.
When It Is a Performance Issue
Sometimes the system checks out and the person still isn't performing. That happens.
Coach first. Name the gap specifically, give concrete support, set a timeline. If performance doesn't improve, then you make the harder call.
That decision, when it's made after a genuine system audit, is fair. It honors the staff member's dignity because you've done the work to confirm the problem isn't structural. Proverbs 24:27 puts it plainly: prepare the field before you build the house. Sequence is wisdom, and it applies to personnel decisions too.
Skipping the system question doesn't just hurt operations. It means you may be ending someone's livelihood over a problem they didn't create.
The Pattern That Breaks the Cycle
High turnover without resolution is a signal. When the same role churns through multiple people with the same outcome, stop looking at the people. Start looking at the structure.
A thriving school isn't built on blaming the right people. It's built on building the right systems, anchored in your mission.
The diagnostic is simple, but it requires discipline to use it in sequence. System first. Performance second.
Your staff deserve the first question before they face the second.
Pause. Take a breath. Think about a role in your school where you've seen repeated struggle. Before you ask whether it's a performance issue, ask whether the system is actually in place.
That one shift could change everything for your school, your staff, and your own leadership clarity.
