Your people’s performance illustrates your leaderships limits

Most leaders assume performance is a straight-up reflection of capability. Someone performs well, so they must be capable. Someone performs poorly, so they must not be. It sounds logical, and it is certainly convenient, because once we decide someone’s performance is simply who they are or what they are capable of, we don’t have to look much further.

Unfortunately, it is nowhere near that simple.

What you see is not someone’s capability – you’re seeing their performance in the environment they are operating in … and that is not necessarily their capability.

People perform surprisingly differently in different environments. Most have seen this (or more accurately heard about it) as I had – I once had a woman working in my business who was mediocre at best. I just assumed that was her level. She then moved to another business and wow! What I heard that she did in that business shocked me – she was innovative, her leadership was strong and impactful and she was promoted multiple times. When she was working for us, for some reason it wasn’t working for her, and so we all but wrote her off. How wrong we were, and what a lesson to learn.

The same person in a different environment can demonstrate completely different performance.

When you assume performance equals capability, you stop being curious. You stop wondering what's really going on. You stop asking what might be in the way. You assume the person is the problem, rather than considering that the environment may be limiting how they perform.

It’s also convenient because as the leader, you create the environment and few leaders want to truly acknowledge that responsibility so they fall into the trap I call ‘managing’.

Managing looks at current performance and treats it as the truth. Managing labels people, lowers expectations, manages around limitations and decides - often without ever saying it out loud - what someone is and is not capable of.

Leadership understands that performance is not fixed and the environment determines how much of a person’s capability is able to be expressed. How much of their potential will be reached for.

The obvious but accurate analogy is of a plant that is not thriving. You do not look at the plant and immediately conclude, “This plant is no good.” You look at the conditions. The soil, the light, the water, the space. You wonder what is missing or what is too much. You wonder what would need to change for it to grow. Change the environment and the same plant can thrive.

People are not plants, obviously, but the principle holds.

If someone is not performing, the most useful first question is not, “What is wrong with them?” It is, “What conditions are they operating in?” Are expectations clear? Is the standard high enough? Is truth being spoken directly? Are conversations honest enough? Does this person feel seen, challenged and supported? Is there enough trust for them to take risks? Is there enough space for them to bring forward what they really think? Are you having the conversations that would actually reveal what is holding them back?

The lazy ‘leader’ might call this pandering. But these are the questions of real leadership.

There is a vast difference between adjusting the environment so people can avoid discomfort, and creating an environment where people can meet their potential. The first weakens performance and culture. The second unlocks both.

Most people want to succeed. They want to do work they are proud of and to be seen and recognised as capable. They want to contribute something meaningful and to be recognised for their contribution and impact. Of course there will be people in the wrong role, the wrong business, the wrong season of life, but as a starting point I would trust the simple truth that people generally want to do well.

Wanting to succeed, however, is not enough. People need an environment that draws their potential out of them.

And the leader is responsible for creating that environment. Most specifically, the CEO.

Culture is not created by accident. It is dictated unconsciously by what the CEO allows, expects, rewards, challenges, avoids and speaks into existence every day. It is created in the decisions that are made, the standards that are held and what is tolerated. And above all, it is created in conversation: who the leader speaks to, how directly they speak, what they choose to name, what they avoid, how deeply they understand the people behind the work.

These things become the conditions people operate within. And those conditions shape the surprisingly malleable thing we call performance.

This is why leadership carries such responsibility. The leader is not simply observing performance. They are creating the environment that produces it.

That does not mean every performance issue is the leader’s fault. That would be too simple a conclusion and not useful. But it does mean every performance issue should make the leader curious about the environment.

Before you decide someone is not capable, look at what they are operating inside. Look at the clarity of your expectations. Look at the honesty of your conversations. Look at what you tolerate and avoid. Look at what your culture rewards, punishes, ignores and protects.

If someone is not performing, you can choose the easy conclusion that they lack capability.

Or you can be curious about whether their performance may be telling you something about the environment you created. More often than not you aren’t viewing the limitations of the person – you are viewing the limitations of the environment.

And perhaps, the limit of your current leadership ... but that is not fixed either.

Just as their performance is not the full measure of their capability, your current leadership is not the full measure of yours.

The environment can change.

Your leadership can change.

And when it does, so will their performance.