Are we missing talent by not creating workplaces where people feel safe to express it?

Something I studied years ago changed the way I think about talent, confidence and the environments we create for people.  Years ago, I was studying for a PhD in an area that genuinely excited me - the psychology of language and how people use speech to make sense of the world around them.

My research required a compromise, and my tutor worked on something I had not originally planned to explore - how children develop their thinking through the way speech is structured around them. Though I was always more drawn to working with adults, I learnt a lot through a study I came across during that time, one I’d like to share.

A young child was placed into an older age group. For a long time they did almost nothing visible - just watched, listened and absorbed everything happening in the room. But when they returned to their original group, they started experimenting and trying things they had never attempted before, applying what they had been observing all along - they simply needed a different environment to feel safe enough to try.

I think about this often when I see talented professionals leave a company and suddenly thrive somewhere else, accepting senior roles they were never offered in the place where they had spent years developing. The potential was always there, but the environment never made it feel safe enough to unfold.

Managers often believe they have no natural successors. In reality, those people are frequently already present, watching, learning and waiting to step forward. Without that opportunity, they leave and grow somewhere else.

This is one of the things I work on with leaders and their teams - creating the conditions where people do not need to change companies to discover what they are truly capable of.

What would it mean for your organisation if your most capable people felt confident enough to fully show up where they already are?.

This post was written by Maryna. You can follow her here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryna-harrison/