How to Spot High Performers on Your Team—and Keep Them

Every leader wants high performers on their team. The employees who consistently deliver excellent results. The ones who raise the bar and make everyone around them better. And no wonder—one study of more than 600,000 workers found that high performers deliver up to 400% more value than the average worker. Four hundred percent. That’s not a typo.

But here’s the catch. High performers can only deliver that kind of value when they’re motivated, supported, and not buried under an endless pile of work. High performers don’t need your organization as much as your organization needs them. If you don’t know how to identify them and create the right conditions to help them thrive, they’ll take their talents elsewhere.

And yet, many leaders are looking in the wrong places when it comes to spotting high performers.

Visibility Isn’t Value

Most managers default to the loudest person in the room. The one who dominates meetings, fills your inbox with constant updates, and always has something to say. That’s visibility—but not necessarily value. In far too many workplaces, visibility gets rewarded more than actual contribution.

Meanwhile, the real high performers often fly under the radar. They’re not seeking attention. They’re quietly delivering results and elevating everyone else’s work. High performers aren’t just high output—they’re high leverage. They make other people better.

So how do you find them? Here are a few diagnostic questions to start.

• Who makes everyone else’s job easier? Not just because they’re helpful, but because they reduce friction, share feedback, and elevate the performance of others.
• Whose deliverables set the standard? The report that becomes the team’s template. The presentation that gets referenced months later.
• Who teaches without being asked? They don’t hoard knowledge; they share it freely. They become trusted, informal mentors.
• Who spots problems before they become crises? They see patterns others miss and pivot before issues escalate.

You may already have someone in mind. They’re often not the ones with the flashiest résumés or the most airtime in meetings. More often, they’re the ones colleagues turn to after the meeting—to clarify what just happened and how to adjust.

Still not sure? Try this: ask each team member, “If you had to go on leave tomorrow, who would you trust to take over your most important project?” The name you hear repeatedly is very likely your highest performer.

High performers don’t just get work done. They change the way work gets done—quietly, consistently, and without asking for credit.

Why Leaders Lose Their Best People

Of course, spotting high performers is only half the job. Once you’ve found them, the real challenge begins: keeping them. Many leaders unintentionally drive their top talent away by falling into predictable traps. They assume high performers will stay self-motivated forever. They reward good work with more work. They micromanage, or worse, they hoard opportunities for fear of losing their best players.

Those approaches don’t work. In fact, they almost guarantee your high performers will start scanning the horizon for a better opportunity. If you want to retain them, you’ll need a different approach.

How to Support and Retain High Performers

Don’t just pile on more work.

One of the most common mistakes leaders make is treating high performers as their personal problem solvers. “Sarah’s a superstar—she’ll handle it.” Until Sarah burns out. Until she resents her teammates. Until she feels like she’s carrying the entire team on her back with no support. The reward for great work shouldn’t be an endless cycle of more work. Stretch your high performers, yes, but don’t spread them so thin they break. Be intentional about where you direct their energy, and make sure it’s spent on the highest-impact opportunities.

Do set clear and ambitious expectations.

High performers crave clarity. They want to know what winning looks like—both in terms of results and relationships. What does success mean for their project, their stakeholders, their clients? Autonomy is important, but it can’t come at the expense of direction. You can’t exceed expectations if you don’t know what they are.

Don’t micromanage.

At the same time, once you’ve set those expectations, step back. High performers are often closer to the day-to-day work than you are. They’ve weathered industry changes. They may even know how to do the work better than you do. So resist the temptation to dictate every detail. Your job isn’t to prescribe the path—it’s to clear it. Give them autonomy to decide how and when to deliver.

Do help them find meaning.

A paycheck matters, but meaning matters more. High performers want to know that real people benefit from their work. Share thank-you notes from clients or other departments. Connect them to the stories of impact. Show them the ripple effect of their contributions. When they see how their efforts improve lives or move the organization forward, their motivation soars.

Don’t try to keep them to yourself.

Perhaps the hardest lesson: don’t hoard your best people. Yes, losing them stings. But stunting their growth by holding them back is the fastest way to lose them anyway. Instead, invest in their long-term success. Advocate for their visibility. Connect them with new projects, training, and mentors. Have honest conversations about career paths—even if those paths eventually lead outside your team. When they see you’re invested in their growth, they’ll stay engaged and committed for as long as they’re with you.

Clearing the Runway

The bottom line is simple: if you want high performers to keep delivering that 400% value, you can’t just pile on work and hope for the best. You need to ask yourself: am I clearing the runway for them to soar, or am I blocking their takeoff?

Give them clarity on expectations, autonomy in execution, and meaning in their work. Support their growth even if it means they eventually outgrow your team. Do all that, and you’ll keep your high performers engaged—and make your entire team stronger in the process.