Leading in a High-Performing Environment

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Tough Leadership Conversations: Leading High PerformersTough Leadership Conversations: Leading High Performers (download transcript)

Adam Lacey

Welcome to the Tough Leadership Conversations series. I'm Adam, the co-founder of Assemble You, the audio learning experts, and I'm joined by Ruth Farenga, Executive Leadership Coach, TEDx speaker, host of the Conscious Leaders podcast and author of the brilliant Next Level Leadership. Together, we'll examine how to navigate some of the most challenging workplace discussions. Think pay rise requests, performance reviews, managing managers, dealing with divergent views, and talking about mental health. Unclear communication can lead to an erosion of trust, staff absenteeism, a breakdown of relationships and a decline in performance, so getting these tricky conversations right is absolutely essential. This series is as much about reflecting inward as a leader as it is about your day-to-day management practices and techniques. In this series, we'll discuss approaching situations with a positive intention. Fundamentally, we get the most out of individuals when we concentrate on what's working rather than what we perceive to be broken. So, with that in mind, let's get started. So Ruth, what are we talking about today?

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Ruth Farenga

Okay, so today, we're talking about leading high performers.

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Adam Lacey

Fantastic. And can we just start with the context of that? What do we mean when we say high performers?

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Ruth Farenga

So these are individuals within your team who are particularly good at what they do. Maybe they're very experienced or they have accelerated up the promotional ladder very quickly. And so very capable individuals.

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Adam Lacey

Very capable individuals who are high achievers and have moved, yeah, like you say, quickly through organisational structures, maybe quicker than the average, is what we're getting at here, isn't it? So these kind of rising stars within an organisation. And I guess the first question is why is nurturing these high performers so important? I mean, I guess it's reasonably obvious, but it might be worth just outlining a few of the key points.

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Ruth Farenga

Yeah. It can be tempting to treat them like any other, but because of their kind of rocket-like success and their ability, we need to treat them a bit differently if we're going to use them to their best, keep them in the team and help them feel valued, and that they're working to their potential because they may be able to go a lot faster and further than others. So we need to better leverage that and not slow them down in any way or hold them back.

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Adam Lacey

Yeah. So that's, yeah, a slightly different role. And although we talked about in some of the other episodes, you know, equity between our team members and treating people equally. What we're saying here actually is that there are some circumstances where we may have to pay some special attention or do things slightly differently.

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Ruth Farenga

I think this is really about equity over equality. So, we don't need to treat them equally, but we do need to treat them equitably. So we need to better look in the moment when they may need more attention and when they don't and that's a skill, that's another tightrope.

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Adam Lacey

Great. That’s another thing for us to balance. So, let's talk about some of the unique challenges around managing these high performers. Well, how might they be different to managing regular teams? What might some of the difficult conversations or things we have to have come up specifically for this group?

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Ruth Farenga

Yeah, I think for this group, many of them are really interested in their career trajectory. So, it may not just be the day-to-day activities that are important to them. They're thinking about the future, and they may also gobble up lots of people's jobs because they're so capable. They quite often go around doing a lot. So we need to be quite clear with roles and responsibilities. We'll get into some of this detail, but it's, yeah, I think we need to think about managing them well so we don't restrict them, but we also can let them excel and grow too.

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Adam Lacey

And I guess that's the key bit here, isn't it? What are those guardrails that we do put in place for this group and where's that line that we need to draw for them? Do we just say, “Have at it, you've got my full support, my full backing”? Or do we say, “Right up to this level? Yes. And then after that, come back, have a conversation with me”.

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Ruth Farenga

Well, maybe if I walk us through like five steps that I think would help deal with these individuals and those roles and responsibilities will come into that.

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Adam Lacey

Yes, please. Yeah. Let's go through the five steps.

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Ruth Farenga

Okay. First is, I'd really acknowledge the expertise, so it can be tempting as a manager, as a leader in an organisation, to feel like you know it all. I think it's really important to say what you don't know and how much more they may know than you do. So do not be afraid to really learn from them and acknowledge that kind of difference in your knowledge level. It’s there as a resource. Second, I would really focus on enabling their success. So this is back to intention. You know, your job is to make them successful. They might be a big ego, they might not, but at the end of the day, they need to believe that you care about them and care about their success. So how can you get stuff out the way for them? Maybe your role is to remove barriers so that they can accelerate more quickly. Third is generally to lead with humility and confidence. Now this is this tightrope we are kind of discussing here. You know, we need to be secure enough to say, “I don't know,” but we also need to better make decisions decisively and incorporate their input. So, you know, we might lean on them for certain decisions, we might let them take the lead on some things, but we also need to better assert our authority as well and get really clear on what, when that is. And that kind of leads into point four, which is really get clear on these roles and responsibilities. So quite often companies teams have a grid about who does exactly what, where decision making power falls so that these individuals are clear on the scope they have. And of course that can be adjusted over time. You know, in performance management discussions you might be looking at their scope because maybe that can expand. It needs to be very clear to them, you and the team, so that people don't get confused of who to turn to for what. Because they're kind of a leader probably within your team. So you need to make sure that's really clear. And then finally, I'd say build trust with them through your actions. And if you're trying to get barriers out the way for them, if you are talking about their success, they're going to need to see you following up on stuff. So don't promise anything you're not gonna follow through, because as a high performer, they'll expect the same of you. So just don't promise anything you can't deliver and really build trust through those kinds of action-orientated activity.

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Adam Lacey

Fantastic. So acknowledge their expertise, enable their success, lead with humility and confidence, and make decisive decisions, be clear on the roles and responsibilities, and build trust through actions. Let's talk a little bit about enabling success here because I think there's a few things that we can do. This is an area we can probably be quite proactive as well, isn't it? I think this is a conversation in weekly team meetings. It's like, okay, what's causing friction? What's stopping you achieving? Where are the kinds of barriers? I mean, to be honest with you, this is probably a conversation we could have with most of our team. But it's almost more important, sharper with these high performers because there might be, you know, there might be a kind of more of a time critical element to it, say, because maybe they're moving at a pace that the others aren't as well. So, I think there are two things here. One is helping bring down barriers and giving them the tools and access to things that they need. And then two, and I think this one is sometimes overlooked, but this concept is like protecting them a little bit. And that's maybe protecting them from external requests, things coming from outside of the team, things coming from other departments. Because frankly, you get people who start doing very well and other departments go, “Oh, we could use them on this project; would they like to be involved?” And, actually, all of a sudden then they're being pulled in too many different directions and they were flying high with what you were working with them on, or what they're working on with your team, but now they've just got too much they're trying to cover.

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Ruth Farenga

Yeah, they can be really ambitious individuals, which is certainly worth nurturing. But you're right, some can be overly driven sometimes. Talk about these overly driven individuals who are striving very hard, maybe putting a lot of pressure on themselves. So you can watch out for those signs of stress if you think that’s creeping in.

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Adam Lacey

Yeah, that's the other thing I was going to say is how do we make sure they don't burn out? What should we be looking out for there for kind of signs? Because I feel like it's this group more than others that will push and push and take on more and, you know, load more on their shoulders until at some point they crack. And I've worked with people who have this kind of stuff has happened to them before. And there are a few telltale signs like they're working till 10 o'clock at night most evenings. Or they're messaging on the weekend and there are things like that that are happening that like why are they doing that? Do they need to do that? Are they taking any time off at all? Because I think there's an element of, you know, you need to recharge, reset. In order to be a high performer, you need to look after your own well-being as well.

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Ruth Farenga

I think it's a really good point. And what you said about noticing how late they're working. You know, that's a really key one, and it's important to be a role model as well. Like as a team, you might have styles like, oh, I didn't know, we don't send emails after 6pm or if we're gonna do that, we're going to schedule it for the following morning. You know, that can be great team behaviours to help individuals feel comfortable. Because if someone's sending emails at 1 pm, the rest of the team might be like, “Oh, I might need to answer them.” So if you've got some behaviours in place that are about how you operate, some ways of working, that can be really good. You know, maybe it's like we don't have Slack on your phone or whatever. So you are using channels like Slack or Teams that you can use when you're back to your desk in the morning, not, you know, in the wee hours or late at night. You are right. Those high performers can put a lot of pressure on themselves. But I do think that's possible for any level, whether it be low performer, high performer. And I guess we've got the module on dealing with mental health as a leader to really dive into when you're noticing signs of distress for someone.

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Adam Lacey

Yes. Yeah. Fantastic. Let's talk about this leading with humility and confidence bit and being decisive because I feel like there are a couple of things to unpack here, and I guess the big question is how much do we need to direct, dictate, put guardrails up for these high performers versus how much do we kind of need to get out of the way and just be a coach and a mentor and some of them to come to for advice. Yeah, that's the crux of what I'm getting at, I guess.

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Ruth Farenga

Yeah. We definitely wanna limit the amount of advice we're giving for sure, because they've got all the answers and more, right? So our ability to coach, be non-directive, listen. Offer them feedback or hypotheses and things like that. What you're noticing for sure. But your role as a listener and as a coach becomes more and more important here to really help them excel. I always think 80/20 is good with this stuff. You know, listen, ask questions, for 80% of the time, 20% that is giving advice or direction. Unless you feel like they're really not getting there themselves.

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Adam Lacey

Yeah. And in terms of taking a firmer line or almost letting the high performer, you know, come in and potentially take your job. And I think that's an interesting one actually as a leader that we should kind of be, I guess, aware of. But at some point, if you're managing very high performing people, they may well have their eyes on your role and wanting to lead the team, I guess. What's the advice there in terms of like managing our own career with high performers?

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Ruth Farenga

It's gonna be about your aspirations as well. Like it might be there's lots of progression for you in your career and you're quite excited about the possibility of them taking your role. Or it might be there's a real limit to progression in the company and their role has a limit and really ultimately they'll need to move onto another role in order to progress. So it depends on how some companies and some workplaces, it's very flexible and you can get a lot of, if you can't even get height in your world then get breadth. So you can get them doing projects in different departments and if they can't get promoted, we can really help them broaden their role. But there are limits to roles, you know, particularly in smaller companies that have a limit, which means we do need to manage expectations that to a certain extent, they may not grow unless they move on. And that's a really honest conversation to have. And you'll know how much possibility there is because usually there are a huge amount of options in the company to be able to grow.

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Adam Lacey

I think that's spot on, and maybe being open and honest, you know, reasonably early about that. It's quite a good place to go because you, we then going back to, you know, building trust and respect with this group, with these people, persons, and providing they know that and are bought into it. I think actually the same thing comes back to salary as well, you know, because this group will often have expectations around salary that maybe growth is a lot quicker than others' expectations because they see themselves as operating at this higher level and so want the kind of salary position and other things to back it up. So I think you are right that being really honest with them and having that tough conversation to say, “Okay, this is what we can do right now.” I also think in some cases there may be opportunities to push it back into the court of the high performer. You know, and especially in smaller businesses where you might say, “Well, this role doesn't exist yet, but if we do X, Y, Z, if we achieve this and this, then this role could exist and you are in a position to effectively A, make that happen and then B, create that role and then C step into it.” So, I think you can probably get creative here as a manager. Obviously, in some cases there's big companies or structures where you can't kind of influence or promise anything like that. Like you say, as long as you're able to follow through on it, if they do the things that you ask them to, then this could actually be an opportunity for them to help create the role that they want to be in. And I've seen that before with high performing people where they've been very good at lots of different things and they've worked across lots of different departments or lots of different projects. But they're very passionate about one or two things in particular. And they don't quite, the company doesn't quite, or the organisation doesn't quite have a role for that specific passion, but there's an opportunity to create one in the future. And so, and yeah, I've seen people kind of actually do that and move into it, and I think that's a really interesting one as well.

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Ruth Farenga

I think that's a really good point because these individuals are interested in their career growth and you are a place and time in their career. You're a stepping stone in their career. So how can we use this time you are with us to help you accelerate your growth that's gonna be good for the company, it's gonna be good for you, it's gonna be good for the team. And I think, because not always, but sometimes they may have a bit of a big ego. So we need to make sure they're balancing that. How will this feel for the team? How's it gonna feel for you? How is it gonna be from the organisational perspective? So that we hold those three things in balance, but help them use that period they're with you and see your role as that stepping stone. You know, the likelihood is they're not gonna be with you for 10 years. So what is it that can be achieved in the years they are in that role?

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Adam Lacey

Yeah. How can you best utilise the energy and the passion and all the other things that they do have in the timeframe that you have. I like the idea of, you know, creating, working in different teams, working on different projects, kind of thinking a bit more laterally as well. You come up against a high performer who is maybe is hitting a ceiling of some sort. It's like, okay, well there's nowhere for me to go right here, but actually is there a sideways move to make? I had a friend actually that did a secondment, I think it was like a six or an eight-month secondment in a company that the organisation partnered very closely with. So they were in kind of like supply chains, logistics, and retail effectively. So in order to understand the supply chain, the logistics and everything that went behind the creation of these FMCGs that were being created for this retailer, they actually went and worked for the FMCG group for six or eight months, or even a year, I can't remember how long it was, but they got fully kind of embedded. They got a real rich different type of experience for that amount of time. And obviously a high performer from the FMCG group came and worked for the retailer as well. So that I think is quite an interesting solution to maybe you want to keep them a bit longer. You want to help them grow their experience, but yet there's lots of different ways you can think about this creatively that can help as well. Let's talk just for a moment about being really clear on roles and responsibilities. I think with this group, roles and responsibilities can change quite quickly. And I actually also want to ask a question about responsibilities of, you know, is the high performer also responsible for helping others to perform better? Should we be making that a priority over kind of letting them spread their wings and fly? So I want to get your view on that as well.

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Ruth Farenga

Yeah, what a really nice perspective, Adam. I think that's depending on their aspiration. It could be that they'high-performinging in a very technical, specific field. They need to go off and do that separately. Or it could be that management and leadership is really of interest to them. So they do wanna take parts of your role or mentor team members or maybe even take on a smaller part of the team if the team's getting a bit big. I think that's a really great way of thinking about their progression, especially if they're interested in those management and leadership opportunities.

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Adam Lacey

Yeah, I like that. And I think, you might get a bit of friction here in certain roles, for example, sales that are maybe competitive in that, you know, you are not necessarily pitched against the other salespeople in your team. But in some ways you are, you know, there might be commission at stake or other rewards, bonuses and things like that. I saw something done in a really smart way actually around this, where there was a bigger reward for the team achievement over the individual achievement. So that the high performers were incentivised financially to help pull up the overall team performance as well. So they might have hit their number, I don't know, two-months into a three-month quarter, say they could stick their feet up, say, for the last month, or prepare for the next quarter, or if they doubled down and helped their team their financial reward would be considerably bigger because of how it was structured.

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Ruth Farenga

That's a really nice incentive for them to support.

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Adam Lacey

I really liked that. Yeah. And I thought it was a great way of kind of getting that kind of knowledge and learning to flow down through the rest of the team and to make any kind of protectionism or you know, guarding of your secrets of how you do stuff, just completely a non-issue.

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Ruth Farenga

Yeah, I think anything that encourages collectivism like that is really good away from individualism.

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Adam Lacey

Alright, so let's round off with our top tips for this lesson.

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Ruth Farenga

Yeah. I think the first one really enables the success of thehigh-performinging individuals. Get stuff out their way, really help think about how they can propel themselves. Second is set really clear roles and responsibilities so they're not doing other people's jobs for them or you know, and everyone's really clear about how the team operates. And third is focus on their overall career and listen to their career aspirations and see your time with them as a moment in time, a stepping stone. What can they achieve with you that's gonna help them get to ultimately where they wanna be.

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Adam Lacey

Fantastic. So enable their success, set clear roles and responsibilities, and focus on their overall career. Three brilliant points to end on as always. Thank you for your time, Ruth. That's all we've got time for today in this Tough Leadership Conversations episode. We hope you'll join us for the next one.

You’re a senior leader overseeing multiple departments, and one of your direct reports, Alina, is widely recognised as a high performer.

She’s driven, strategic, and consistently delivers exceptional results—often ahead of schedule. She’s respected by peers and has built influence beyond her own team. But recently, you’ve sensed signs of burnout: late-night emails, an increasingly intense tone in meetings, and less openness to feedback.

Meanwhile, junior team leads have started coming to you directly, unsure of how to work alongside Alina’s dominant presence. You value her contributions immensely but you’re concerned she might be heading toward overload, and that her rapid pace could unintentionally stifle others.

You know it’s time to step in.

1. How can you honour Alina’s ambition while helping her avoid burnout and model healthier working norms for her team?
2. What conversations do you need to have to define leadership responsibilities, clarify influence, and protect equity across the wider organisation?
3. How can you support Alina in exploring broader career development without making her feel like she’s being pushed out or boxed in?

Leading High Performers

Acknowledge their expertise.

Recognise their skills and knowledge, and be open to learning from them.

Enable their success.

Remove obstacles and provide the support they need to thrive.

Lead with humility and confidence.

Balance decisiveness with being open to their input.

Support their career aspirations.

Help them achieve their long-term goals.

Foster collaboration, not competition.

Encourage knowledge sharing and team success.

Set clear roles and responsibilities.

Define expectations to prevent confusion and ensure effective teamwork.

Build trust through actions.

Follow through on commitments and avoid making promises you cannot keep.

Encourage breaks and promote healthy work habits.

(download infographic)