The Glance

The Glance

For years, I focused my development work on the leaders at the top. I was good at it. And that kept me from seeing what was right in front of me.

The moment it clicked is still clear in my mind. I was in a room watching a team meeting unfold, doing what I do. Then I noticed the glance. Quick. Almost invisible. When something important was said, every eye in the room moved the same direction. Not to the head of the table. To a person sitting off to the side.

I have never forgotten that glance. I had sat in rooms like that before but just never noticed. You probably know who I am talking about and pictured someone the second I described it. That is not a coincidence. That is how much gravity this person carries. We have worked with over 70 different teams and that person exists on every single one of them. And in almost every case, they are just waiting for someone to finally invest in them.

One of those people became a client of ours not long ago. She was not the team lead, but everyone knew she set the standard. Her manager knew it too. She had spent months trying to show people how it was done. Working harder. Producing more. Setting a pace she hoped would be visible.

The team watched. Nothing changed.

Her manager was busy managing the underperformers. Putting out the same fires month after month. This is where most managers spend their energy. Focused on what is broken, while what is strongest is left alone.

Gallup found that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team engagement. Organizations respond by pouring more into managerial training. What they miss is the person two seats over who is already shaping how the whole team operates. Ready to lead. Underdeveloped because no one knows what to do with them beyond keeping them going.

Here is what we have learned after years of developing teams.

High performers are the most underutilized people on the team. They got there by doing. And doing is what was asked of them. They figured out what works, executed at a high level, and assumed they could bring the team along by showing them how. At some level it works. Usually it plateaus. Modeling performance and influencing how people think and perform are two completely different skills.

Tasha Eurich, in her book Insight, found that while 95% of people believe they are self aware, only 10-15% actually are. Most high performers live that gap every day. They know what they produce. They rarely understand how they impact others. My client was living in that first circle. High output. Underdeveloped influence. Nobody had closed the loop for her.

This is the gap most high performers rarely get over. Output got them to that seat, but it’s likely not going to take them further. The ones who figure that out develop in 3 areas:

Self: It starts with you. How aware you are of yourself and how others actually experience you. This is foundational.

Others: From there it moves outward. How your relationships and communication shape what the people around you believe they can do. This leads others.

Organization: And when that influence grows, it connects to something bigger. How your ideas and energy move the team toward what the organization is actually trying to build.

The loop matters more than the list. The more someone develops themselves, the more they shape the people around them. The more they shape those people, the more the whole team moves in a new direction. Deeper insight leads to wider influence. Wider influence leads to stronger impact. Each one opens the next.

When my client stopped trying to prove herself and started influencing the people around her, something shifted. The conversations changed. The way her peers approached problems changed. The team started moving in new ways that had nothing to do with her output.

We have watched that happen across teams. We have also watched it never happen at all. Great people. Real high performers. Sitting undeveloped while the focus and budgets went elsewhere. That’s what drove us to build something different.

Warrick’s Workforce Development

A cohort of your best people, regardless of role or title, brought into a learning community. Every week they work through a module built around the same loop. How they think about themselves. How they show up for others. How their growth connects to what the organization is building.

Warrick's Program Director drives the engagement and builds a weekly discussion that leads to a monthly deliverable. Something concrete your leadership can actually see. Each one shows exactly how this person is growing and what that influence can do for your team.

Your best people are already working hard. They are already shaping things whether you invest in them or not. The question is, whether that shaping is building something or slowly wearing them out?

We got into this work because we believed development changed people. What we did not expect was how much it would change the way we saw people. The glance is happening in your organization right now. Someone is waiting for you to notice.

Reach out to Warrick to invest in the person everyone looks to.

Want to go further? Read more on Warrick's Workforce Development page: https://warrickcompany.com/workforce