Within a few weeks on staff while in the HR role my leader was fired due to to poor leadership, decisions or lack thereof, and frequent absence. I took it in stride and saw the opportunity to help fill a gap, which put me under new leadership that was extremely toxic and what I could see the reason for the previous leader stepping off the team. I believe there were at least 7-9 terminations on the Staff Operations Group in the short span I was on staff due to leader I had. I was treated as a threat my entire time on staff, which made my working relationship with my leader difficult. In the beginning, I thought that this was something that no one saw and with how much I cared about Life.Church and the employees I knew I had to say something even if it ended in termination. What I unfortunately realized is that everyone knew and accepted it. I was told on several occasions that peers of this leader and even higher were aware of how toxic the environment was. I was advised to challenge this leadership and was met with gaslighting and even worse. This type of leadership where someone is looking for ways to get rid of you and tells you that or the most common saying in my one on ones which was "I have enough to get rid of you, if I wanted to..." caused everything to spin out. I became unhealthy and poured even more of myself into my work as a mom of toddlers, not my family. My marriage was not in the best shape when I came onto the team but that became the target for my leader to attack, my achilleas heal. I would go into one on ones trying desperately to seek wisdom or show what we were working on as a team and was met with questions about my personal life and assumptions that were not accurate. I often left believing the narrative I was told about my own personal life. When my ex-husband filed for divorce he was interviewed by my leader and a DLT member without my knowledge or consent. I was told directly after that interview that they would allow me to stay on staff as an exception, while rumors went wild with the personal information leaked by my leader. A few weeks later I put my notice in with DLT and made it very clear why I could not work under that leadership. It will go down as one of the most heartbreaking conversations of my life with the person I loved and respected the most while on the team and one of the hardest things I have had to do. I am now almost a year out and I am still hearing rumors of what people believe happened or were told about my exit by leadership. I loved my church before I came on staff, and I love my church now. I have a hard time walking back into the physical location of church and separating the immense hurt. I am flooded with memories both beautiful ones of lives changed and feeling the Holy Spirit so clearly moving in a room to memories of sitting at my leader's desk where I would leave in tears and anxiety attacks. The people that I was told loved me "unconditionally" no longer speak to me. I believe in restoration and know that this was a unique situation, but how unique is it for this leader.
