Lending Someone Your Voice Until They Find Their Own
At the end of my junior year of high school, a teacher named Mr. LeFever pulled me aside. He thought I should run for Senior Class Vice President.
I didn’t see what he saw.
Whatever confidence I carried back then was a thin veneer over a lot of insecurity. The idea of standing in front of my classmates and asking them to vote for me felt genuinely terrifying. We talked for a while. He made his case. I pushed back. And then I asked the question I was most afraid to ask.
“What if I don’t win?”
He smiled. “Tim, you’ll be in Student Government next year.”
That was it. Regardless of how the vote went, he would make sure I had a seat at the table. He didn’t tell me I was talented. He didn’t predict a landslide. He just quietly removed the cost of trying. And in doing so, he changed the stakes enough that I said yes.
Yes, I ran. I gave what might be the worst speech in the history of high school academia. Less than 45 seconds… in… out… sit down. Words tumbling over each other, nerves and adrenaline doing things I couldn’t control.
I won anyway.
Forty years later, Mr. LeFever’s words still have an indelible mark on me. Not because he praised my performance. Because he saw something in me before I saw it in myself.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Mr. LeFever was teaching me something. Lending your voice to someone when they haven’t found their own. That’s encouragement. Not praise.
There’s a difference between the two that I think we as leaders can underestimate.
Praise looks backward. It recognizes what someone has already done. A project completed, a goal hit, a result delivered. Praise is valuable. It’s also easy, because the evidence is already visible.
Encouragement looks forward. It speaks to who someone is becoming, not just what they have accomplished. It focuses on character and potential over outcomes and results. And it requires something praise doesn’t always demand: intentionality, vision, and a commitment to growth.
Most leaders default to praise. Not because they don’t care about their people. Because results are easier to see than growth.
So, what does early growth actually look like before the results show up to confirm it?
It’s the slower, more deliberate response where panic used to be the default. It’s leaning into the problem instead of looking the other way. It’s owning the mistake before anyone asks, or trying to blame someone or something else. It’s renegotiating a commitment before it’s due, not after. It’s the glimpse of confidence that wasn’t there six months ago.
None of that shows up on a scorecard. You have to be looking for it.
And here’s the thing about leadership: we tend to notice what we’re trained to look for. If you’re watching for results, you’ll find them. You’ll also miss most of the growth happening right underneath them.
People know the difference between praise and genuine encouragement. They can feel it. Praise can be given quickly, even casually, and still land well. Encouragement requires you to actually see someone. To know enough about where they’ve been to recognize how far they’ve come. To believe in a future version of them that they haven’t fully believed or recognized.
That kind of encouragement doesn’t just feel good in the moment. It stays. It’s got “legs”. It shows up forty years later in the way someone leads, the way they see their own people, the things they’re willing to say out loud to someone who’s scared to try.
Mr. LeFever probably didn’t spend much time thinking about that conversation. I’ve thought about it most of my life.
Your Turn
Who on your team is growing but not yet winning? Who is leaning in, owning mistakes, finding a confidence they didn’t have before, but hasn’t had a result yet to show for it?
Who needs to hear that you see something in them that they may not yet see in themselves?
That is leadership. And it starts with knowing what you’re looking for, then taking the time to look.
Be Encouraged.
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