Believe in People Before They Believe in Themselves

Some of the most consequential moments in our careers happen when someone else sees something in us before we can see it ourselves.

Sometimes it is a manager who gives us an opportunity we are not entirely sure we are ready for.

Sometimes it is a mentor who recognizes a strength we have underestimated.

Sometimes it is simply someone saying, at exactly the right moment:

“You can do this.”

Looking back over my own career, I can identify moments when someone else’s belief changed what I believed was possible for myself.

Early in my career, I was a BDR, spending my days cold calling to secure meetings. One day, a senior executive was visiting our office and happened to hear me on the phone as they walked by.

Shortly afterward, I was told they wanted to meet with me.

My immediate reaction?

What did I do wrong?

Instead, they told me they thought I should apply for a coveted sales role.

I did not think I was qualified.

They did.

That encouragement pushed me to take a chance I probably would not have taken on my own.

I knew I was the underdog going into the interview process, so I decided that if I was going to take the shot, I was going to make it count.

I created a customized, perfectly branded, professional brochure making the case for why I should get the job. This was more than a decade before AI could help you create something like that in an afternoon.

Years later, the sales leader who hired me—and whose leadership I have tried to emulate ever since—told me he knew I had the job the moment he saw that brochure.

I got the role. That first year, I made President’s Club.

But what stays with me most isn’t the award.

Someone had seen potential in me before I knew it was there.

Their belief pushed me toward a door I wasn’t sure I belonged on the other side of. Once it opened, it was up to me to walk through it and make the most of the opportunity.

That experience taught me something I now believe deeply about leadership:

Potential often appears before confidence does.

See what someone might become

As leaders, it is easy to evaluate people based on what they have already done.

Their experience. Their results. Their current capabilities.

But some of the best leaders I have known have another ability: they can see what someone could do next.

They notice the person asking unusually thoughtful questions.

The person quietly taking on more responsibility.

The person who may not be the obvious choice, but has the curiosity, judgment, resilience, or drive to grow into something bigger.

Leadership is not only recognizing performance.

Sometimes it is recognizing potential.

And sometimes the person with that potential is the last person to recognize it.

Say it out loud

Seeing potential in someone is valuable.

Telling them is even more powerful.

There is a tremendous difference between thinking, She could be really good at this, and actually saying:

“I think you should go for it.”

“You’re ready.”

“I see this in you.”

“I think you can do more.”

Those sentences can stay with someone for years.

Confidence is not always something people develop independently. Sometimes we borrow it from people we trust until we have enough evidence to build our own.

A leader’s belief can become the permission someone needs to take the next step.

Turn belief into opportunity

Years later, it happened to me again.

By then, I was an experienced salesperson. I cared deeply about my own performance, but I also cared about how I performed.

I tried to be the teammate I would want to have—supportive, collaborative, and just as invested in the success of the people around me as I was in my own.

One day, an influential business partner who had become a mentor called me with a question:

Had I ever considered moving into leadership?

I hadn’t.

In hindsight, it was a blind spot. I was so focused on being the best individual contributor and teammate I could be that I had never really considered that those same instincts might translate into leading a team.

My mentor saw it before I did.

It took some convincing, but eventually I had my own Matrix moment and took the proverbial red pill.

I chose leadership.

And the rest is history.

Once again, someone had seen a possibility for my career that I had not yet imagined for myself.

And it doesn’t stop once you become a leader.

Some of the people I’m most grateful for today are leaders who have continued to see capabilities in me beyond the role I was already doing well. They have given me space to stretch into new areas, trusted me with problems I had not solved before, and created room for me to discover what else I could contribute.

At every stage of a career, there is something powerful about having someone look beyond what you have already proven and ask:

What else could this person do?

That distinction has stayed with me.

Mentorship can provide advice.

Sponsorship can provide opportunity.

And belief can give someone the confidence to use both.

If you believe someone is capable of more, give them the stretch assignment. Invite them into the room. Let them lead the presentation. Make the introduction. Advocate for them when they are not there to advocate for themselves.

Then give them the support to succeed.

Believing in someone’s potential does not mean setting them up to sink or swim.

The best leaders stretch people and support them.

Let people surprise you

There is something powerful about giving people room to exceed your expectations.

Not every bet will work exactly as expected.

But if we only give opportunities to people who have already proven they can do the job, we leave very little room for anyone to become something new.

At some point, almost every experienced leader was given an opportunity they had never had before.

Someone had to make the bet.

Someone had to say yes.

Someone had to believe that past experience was not the only indicator of future potential.

Great leaders create more of those moments.

Then become that person for someone else

There is a point in our careers when the question begins to change.

Early on, we understandably ask:

Who believes in me?

Who will mentor me?

Who will give me the opportunity?

Who will advocate for me?

As our careers progress, perhaps the more important question becomes:

Who am I believing in?

Who needs to hear that they are ready?

Whose name should I mention when an opportunity comes up?

Who could benefit from an introduction?

Who deserves a chance to do something they have never done before?

The longer I lead, the more I believe that one of the greatest privileges of career progression is gaining the ability to create opportunities for other people.

Because eventually, leadership becomes less about proving what you can do and more about helping other people discover what they can do.

Think about the moments that changed the trajectory of your career.

Chances are, at least one began because someone saw something in you that you could not quite see yet.

See the potential. Say it out loud. And when you can, create the opportunity for them to discover it for themselves.