Operating out of fear in hiring leads to compromise, and compromise always leads to chaos. The wrong person brings social tension that grows over time. The wrong seat brings performance issues and team frustration. The antidote is not a better process, it's a different belief: that the right person for your organization is out there, that the timing is God's to orchestrate, and that your job is to steward your team well, not to force a result. Filling a seat is not the goal. The goal is protecting the people already entrusted to your care while being patient enough to find the person who's actually going to add to them.
When the hiring pressure hits, something shifts. You stop thinking about who the right person is and start thinking about how fast you can fill the seat. And that shift, from patience to pressure, from stewardship to control, is where almost every bad hire starts.
This episode makes the case for a fundamentally different mindset in hiring: moving from fear and scarcity to faith and abundance. The argument is grounded in two personal stories, the Alaska burnout season and the organic door that opened into organizational health work, and in a core conviction: God is working in the story of the person you're waiting for, just as he's working in yours.
- What you believe about hiring determines how you act in the process. Fear-driven hiring produces compromise. Faith-driven hiring produces patience. The decisions come from the same place as the belief.
- Your role as a leader is to steward your people well. When you're hiring a sixth person for a team of five, those five are trusting you to protect them. The wrong hire doesn't just cost you. It costs them.
- Every time we compromise in hiring, it leads to chaos. Wrong person, wrong seat: both produce consequences that grow worse over time, not better. The quick win never stays a quick win.
- The right person for your organization is out there. But maybe the timing isn't right yet. Switching from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset means believing that, even when it's hard to wait.
- When we try to force a hire out of fear, we often circumvent the blessing. The hardest seasons produce the most growth. The delays that feel like failures are often the process of becoming ready for the right person.
- The right hire is a two-sided intersection. You have to be ready for them and they have to be ready for you. God is working in their story the same way he's working in yours.
- Where does your hope sit? Is it in yourself and in your ability to control outcomes? Or is it in God and in what he's called you to? That answer shapes every hiring decision you make.
Why does fear lead to bad hires and what does it actually cost?
Because fear narrows your vision. When you're feeling the pressure of an open seat, when your team is picking up the slack, you stop evaluating candidates against your actual standard and start evaluating them against the pressure. And the pressure always says: this person is good enough.
Then you bring them on. If they don't share the values, you get social tension and friction in the team dynamic that doesn't just stay the same. It grows. If they're in the wrong seat, you get performance issues and mistakes and team frustration. Issues you could have avoided entirely if you had held out for the right person.
Every time we compromise, it always leads to chaos. When we take control out of fear, we are creating our own consequences. The quick win is never free. You pay for it later, and you pay more than you would have paid if you'd waited.
Every time we compromise, it always leads to chaos. And when we start to take control out of fear, we are really creating our own consequences.
Amy Dardis, Episode 45What does it mean to steward your team well during a hiring search?
It means remembering that your current team has been entrusted to your care. When you're hiring a sixth person for a team of five, those five people don't get a vote on who you bring in. They're trusting you to make that decision well. Are you going to have my back? Are you going to make the right decision for our team, for our business, for our customers?
Your job isn't just to fill the seat. It's to protect the dynamic of the team you already have while finding someone who's going to add to it, not disrupt it. That's why we take the time to go through a strong hiring process: not just for the candidate's sake, but for the team's sake.
The analogy that keeps coming back to me is marriage. I got married in six weeks, so my process was short. But for most people, you figure out: do our values align? Is this someone I want to share my life with? Work has those same parallels. You're going to spend 40 hours a week with this person. Your team is going to spend 40 hours a week with this person. That's worth doing right.
How do you shift from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset in hiring?
By believing that the right person is out there. Someone who shares your values, who's wired for that role, who's going to thrive. They exist. But maybe the timing just isn't right yet. When we try to force it, we often circumvent the blessing.
I moved to Alaska and thought: God called me to this, so it's going to work out fast. I started grinding and trying to force things to happen and entered into a season of burnout. Months of things not coming together. It took time to get to the realization that it wasn't about the results. It was about him shaping me through the process, forming me into who I needed to be for this business to go where he needed it to go.
The delays that feel like failures are often preparation. The right candidate might still be in the process of becoming who they need to be. You might still be becoming the leader you need to be to bring them on and lead them well. I look back at the turning points in my story and I did not make those happen. I did not introduce myself to those people. The door opened at the right time.
Instead of us waiting for that right timing, we basically circumvent the blessing because we then try to make it happen on our own.
Amy Dardis, Episode 45How does faith actually show up in a hiring process practically?
It shows up in the decision to hold out when you feel the pressure not to. In remembering that your job is stewardship, not control. And in trusting that what you're going through in the waiting is doing something in you, not just delaying you.
A few years back, when I was in my web design agency, I felt this restlessness. I knew there was more, but I didn't know what to pursue. Through completely organic interactions over a few months, I ended up working for a company doing organizational health and hiring. I had no idea what was coming. I cannot take credit for it. I didn't know to ask for it. But that door opened at the right time, and it became a huge turning point in my story.
The hardest seasons in my life have been the most fruitful. I never would have signed up for them. But I went through them and I'm grateful. That gives me courage to keep going, to trust the process, to operate from a place of peace. There's a difference between striving out of fear and working out of faith.
I look back and I'm like, wow, I did not make that happen. I did not introduce myself to those people. These were things that happened completely organically at the time in which they were supposed to happen.
Amy Dardis, Episode 45Resources mentioned
- Free Hiring Training — The complete hiring training at clearauthenticbrands.com/training
- Ep 44 — Story, Identity, and Why the Right Hire Changes Everything — The episode immediately before this one on story, identity, and calling in business
- Ep 38 — How to Build a Hiring Process That Verifies Role Fit and Character Alignment — The full process framework for hiring with wisdom and discernment
Full transcript
What we believe about hiring is going to affect how we actually walk through that process, what we actually end up doing. So we start with: what do we believe about hiring and its impact? Why do we do the things that we do?
There's this contrast between our human desire to control and to make things happen and to force a result. As business owners, as leaders, we're in charge. We need to fill this seat. We need to find the right person. And it's all on us. There's an element of truth to that: what we do matters, how we do it matters, the process we walk through matters. But when we operate out of fear, that's going to drive very different decisions versus operating from a place of faith and peace.
It's so much bigger than thinking, I need to fill this seat. It's people. It's your team. It's the person who's gonna fill that seat and the way that person is going to impact your business. It's about you being the leader who needs to lead that person and that team once that dynamic changes. It's about that person being ready to step into that role. Did you wake up and decide how your life was going to go? Or were there all these things that happened that led you down roads you never imagined or thought possible? God opening doors, you meeting people at the right place at the right time. I find a lot of comfort looking back and being like, when I want to freak out about how much control or what is or isn't happening right now, I just look back on my life and remember all the things that got me here that I really cannot take any credit for. Hiring follows that same thought process.
Our role as a leader, first and foremost, is to steward and lead our people and our resources well. We have been entrusted this calling, this business, these resources, these people. God has called these people into your care at different times in your life. Our job is to lead and steward well what we have been given. So when people walk through our door, we have a responsibility to serve them, to lead them, to protect them to the best of our ability.
When you have five people on your team and you're hiring for a sixth seat, you have to be wise, discerning, patient, clear. How is this sixth person going to affect these other five people? What is that dynamic going to look like? Are they going to trust each other? Your team doesn't have the say about whether or not they want to work with that person. They're trusting you to make that decision. Are you going to have my back? Are you going to make the right decision for our team, for our business, for our customers? Can I trust you with that?
It's like when we choose who we're going to marry. I got married in six weeks, so that process was pretty short. But most people date, get to know someone, figure out what do I value, what do they value, is there alignment there, and then engage and marry. Work has so many of those parallels. We're going to spend 40 hours a week with these people. That's going to affect us mentally, emotionally, relationally. Choosing who we're going to spend time with, choosing who our people are going to spend time with, it's worth the time and effort to really do it well.
It's tempting when you have a hiring opening to just want to fill it, because there's pressure. Your team is picking up the slack. And that's where it becomes tempting to compromise. Because we feel that pressure. But that's almost where all compromises start: in those difficult situations. Are we going to stand on our conviction, hold out, do the right thing? Or are we going to settle, take the quick win? But the problem with the quick win is all of the consequences that come later.
You bring on the wrong person: they don't share the values, and you have frustration and tension in the social dynamics, and that starts to grow. It doesn't stay the same, it gets worse. Or someone who's in the wrong seat: they're just not wired for that role, and that causes performance issues and mistakes, and that breeds frustration with the team. Issues you could have avoided if you had held out for the right person. Every time we compromise, it always leads to chaos. When we start to take control out of fear, we are really creating our own consequences.
We want to switch from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset. The right person for your organization is out there. Someone who shares your values, who's going to thrive within that role. They are out there. But maybe the timing just isn't right right now. Instead of waiting for that right timing, we basically circumvent the blessing because we try to make it happen on our own.
I felt this calling from God to build this business, to dive into clear authentic brands, into hiring and people and process. We moved to Alaska and I thought, okay, God called me to this, so it must mean it's all going to work out fast. And I started grinding and trying to make things happen and trying to make things happen. And I entered into a season of burnout. A lot of things not happening. Okay, but God, you called me to this. Why are these things not coming together? It took months for me to get to this realization that it wasn't about the results or the outcome. It was about him shaping me through the process and forming me into who I needed to be in order for this business to go where he needed it to go.
It took a good year of facing my own identity, facing my own internal lies, realizing that a new environment or a new person doesn't just change that. There's a process of learning and shaping and growing and developing that we go through. And then in his timing, things started to happen. I started to change the way I showed up. I started to operate out of a place of peace instead of a place of fear. And then doors started to open that I did not open on my own. I look back and think, I did not make that happen. I did not introduce myself to those people. The door opened at the right time.
A few years back, when I was in my web design and marketing agency, I was feeling this restlessness. Building websites wasn't enough. I was getting into brand clarity and I was like, there's so much more to it. It's not just about what we say, it's about what they do and how they act and how they show up. I knew there was something there. And through completely random and organic interactions over the course of a few months, I ended up going to work for a company to dive head first into people and process and organizational health and hiring. I had no idea what was coming, had no idea how I was going to learn and grow through that. But I look back and I think, man, that was a huge turning point in my story. I cannot take credit for it because I didn't know to ask for it, I didn't know to pursue it. The door opened at the right time.
Not only did that happen for me, it was also a benefit to the business. As a business, they were able to bring on a new set of skills, a new perspective, new values that helped shape and affect and impact what that business was doing at that point in time. That's what that intersection looks like at its best: the individual is blessed by the opportunity to grow and develop and contribute and feel valued, and the business is also impacted because you have this person bringing a skill set and ideas and energy that you needed at that point in time. Maybe a year ago, maybe five years ago, you wouldn't have been ready for them and they wouldn't have been ready for you.
The hardest seasons in my life have been the most fruitful in my life. I never would have asked for it, I never would have signed up for it. But I went through it and I'm so grateful that I did. And it just gives me courage and faith to keep going. Instead of worrying so much about controlling it, I'm starting to trust the process, to operate from a place of peace and faith, knowing that everything is going to work out in its time. And yes, I have an obligation to show up, to be obedient, to do the work, to develop my gifting. It's not just sitting and waiting. It's positioning myself and developing in the process.
As a leader, we have a choice. When we go through every interview, when we talk with every candidate, when we meet with every employee, we have a choice about what we choose to do. And what we choose to do is going to be dependent on what we believe. What we believe about ourselves, what we believe about our calling, what we believe about our identity and our responsibility as leaders. We can embrace the discomfort, embrace the hard path, wait for the right person. Or we can choose to bring the wrong person on board and deal with the consequences.
If God has called you to lead a business, it's because he cares about that. It's because he has a purpose for that. He wired you uniquely, gave you the stories and experiences that have shaped you. If he's done all that, then he also knows exactly who is going to work for you and when and how. Not only does he care about your story, but he's working in that person's story as well, shaping them and developing them into the person you need so that there is a team doing and achieving the purpose and the mission you're called to. We're going to have the right people come at the right time. It's probably going to take longer and be harder than we want it to. Sometimes it's not, but a lot of times it is. But in the end, it is always so worth it.