June 27, 2026

Read Time - 4 minutes

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” ~ Anonymous (Often attributed to Einstein)

The conversation about our internal chair search had been running for twenty minutes when someone finally named the candidate I had my eye on, but the room's response was lukewarm. "She doesn't speak up in meetings." "She doesn't volunteer for committee work." "She's slow to answer email." The verdict was swift: she wouldn't be a good choice.

I understood where they were coming from. At first glance, she looked like someone who had decided to stop trying. But I was seeing a different version of her.

She held a leadership role in her field's professional organization. And a few years earlier, she had done phenomenal work chairing a committee that required collaboration across several parts of the school and produced a set of strong, data-informed recommendations. She handed them to the dean at the time. Unfortunately, nothing came of her committee's report. It was presented at a faculty meeting and never mentioned again.

And, coincidentally, right around then is when she started to go quiet.

I got it. I don't like putting energy into work that goes nowhere. So I put more stock in what I already knew she could do. I encouraged her to apply and made sure she got a real look.

She ended up shining in the interview and converting a few skeptics along the way.

And…she turned out to be a fantastic chair.

We reward what's easy to see

Look at the case against her. She doesn't speak up. She doesn't volunteer. She's slow on email.

Every one of those is a visible behavior. That's exactly why we trust it. Visible things are easy to score. We watch someone command a meeting, fire off a reply in four minutes, raise a hand for every committee, and we feel like we've measured something real.

We haven't. What we've measured is how comfortable a person is being seen.

Speaking with authority measures confidence, not judgment. A fast email measures responsiveness, not whether the thing deserved a fast response. Volunteering for everything measures availability, and sometimes a need to be needed. These are traits. They are not leadership. Sometimes they travel together. And often they don't.

The real leadership markers are harder to see. Does this person make the people around them better? Do they follow through when no one is watching? Will they tell you something true when it costs them? You can't see any of that in a meeting. So we reach for what we can see and let those easy signals answer the hard questions for us.

There's research on the loudest version of this. In group after group, studies keep finding what’s been called the “babble effect”: the people who talk the most get rated as leaders, regardless of how smart they are or the quality of what they actually say. Quantity of talk drives the perception, not quality. Volume reads as authority, and we are wired to confuse the two.

How to find the talent hiding in plain sight

The leader you need may already be on your team. Here are four ways to find them.

Read the quiet before you write it off. Hiding in plain sight is still hiding. If someone's visible behavior doesn't match what you'd expect from a leader, treat it as a question, not a verdict. What did they try before you arrived, and where did it go? Often you are looking at a response to the climate, not a fixed trait. The behavior that screens someone out is sometimes produced by the very thing you are now in a position to fix.

Stop recruiting from the usual suspects. When an opening appears, we scan for the obvious names: most senior, most visible, already holding a title. Those are markers of exposure, not evidence of leadership. Your next leader could be sitting in a quieter seat, passed over for the behaviors that being passed over produced.

Match the talent to the need, not the need to the talent. Start from what the work actually requires, then find the person whose specific strength fits it. A brilliant data-digger and a brilliant peacemaker are both stars. The question is which one the problem in front of you is asking for. The chair search didn’t need the loudest voice in the room. It needed someone who could collaborate and follow through, and that is exactly what her record showed.

Give the overlooked a real stake. Recognition alone doesn't bring someone back. Being trusted with something that matters does. Hand them a problem with a genuine outcome attached, then protect their work and commit to following through for them.

The Bottom Line

The talent that lifts a team rarely announces itself. Your job is to seek it out, then point it at the work that matters. Do that with one person, then another, and the unit you walked into slowly becomes something stronger than it was.

Great teams don't happen by accident. They're built and curated over time.

Try this before Friday

Think of one person on your team whose talents are underused. Now look at your own to-do list, or the projects your unit keeps not getting to. Is there something there that fits their strength, something they'd actually be excited to own? Before Friday, offer it to them. Not as another task on the pile, but as a signal that you see what they're good at.

That's all for today. I'll see you next Saturday.

The Playbook gets you thinking. Here's what gets you moving:

💡 Coaching Built for Campus Leadership

A team that operates more independently. Decisions that move faster. A management bench that's ready. A clear picture of what comes next in your career and a plan to get there.

I work with chairs, deans, and senior leaders as a thinking partner on the leadership that compounds over time, building the people, the systems, and the strategy that move the institution forward. A few spots open each quarter. Learn more.

🏛️ Institutional and Team Development

The strategic plan is only as strong as the leaders executing it, chairs, directors, deans, and the senior staff doing the work across every unit on campus. I work with leaders who want to build capacity, developing the teams, the shared language, and the infrastructure that transfers across people and holds through transitions. Learn more.