Have you ever looked at an employee and wondered: "Why is this so easy for them one day and so difficult the next?"
Or maybe you've noticed one employee who needs constant support while another seems completely self-sufficient.
It's tempting to assume the difference comes down to attitude. Or effort. Or personality.
But often, leaders are diagnosing the wrong problem.
The reality is that performance isn't one-dimensional. Before you can help someone improve, you need to understand why they're struggling in the first place.
One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is treating performance as a single issue. It's not.
Performance is made up of two distinct factors:
Both matter. And both are task specific.
Leaders are often confused when employees perform exceptionally well in one area but struggle in another. The assumption is that something has changed. In reality, the task has changed.
An employee may be highly competent at creating project schedules but completely inexperienced when facilitating a client meeting.
They may be highly motivated to solve customer problems but less motivated when completing administrative work.
That's why great leaders don't ask: "Is this a good employee?"
Instead, they ask: "What is this employee's competence and motivation level for this specific task?"
That question changes everything.
At Vivo Team, we encourage leaders to assess both competence and motivation before deciding how to support someone.
Competence is a person's ability to consistently achieve the desired result on a specific task. It includes:
Competence grows through learning, practice, and experience.
Motivation is different. It's a person's willingness to persist despite challenges. Motivation shows up through:
Someone can have the skills to perform a task but lack the motivation to do it.
Likewise, someone can be highly motivated but lack the experience needed to succeed.
Both situations require different leadership approaches.
When performance isn't where you'd like it to be, resist the urge to jump to conclusions.
Instead, ask yourself:
These two questions help leaders diagnose the real issue instead of treating the symptoms.
Too often, leaders assume someone lacks motivation when they simply lack experience.
Or they continue coaching someone who already has the skills but simply needs more ownership.
The better your diagnosis, the more effective your leadership becomes.
When leaders misunderstand competence and motivation, they often provide the wrong kind of support.
They micromanage capable employees who simply need autonomy. They delegate too quickly to people who haven't developed the necessary skills. They mistake low competence for low motivation. Or low motivation for low competence.
The result? Performance suffers.
Not because people aren't capable. But because the leader solved the wrong problem.
Just as a doctor wouldn't prescribe treatment before making a diagnosis, leaders shouldn't decide how to support people before understanding what's really happening.
One of the most valuable leadership skills isn't giving advice. It's asking better questions.
Great leaders don't label people. They assess the task. They recognize that competence and motivation change depending on the work being performed.
And they adjust their leadership accordingly.
When leaders accurately diagnose where someone is today, they create the conditions for growth instead of frustration.
But understanding the problem is only the beginning.
Once you've identified a gap in competence or motivation, the next step is learning how to have a productive conversation about it.
That's where effective performance coaching begins.
Download Vivo Team's Leadership Guide: A Taste of Genius
If you want to bring out the best in your people, download Vivo Team's leadership guide, A Taste of Genius.
Inside, you'll learn practical leadership frameworks that help leaders create clarity, develop people, improve accountability, and build high-performing teams.
Because when you invest in your people, the results will follow.
Have you ever looked at an employee and wondered, why was this so easy for them on one day, but so difficult for them on the next?
Or perhaps you have an employee who needs constant support, while another seems completely self-sufficient.
Many leaders assume this is an issue of attitude or effort or personality, but often they're diagnosing the wrong problem.
I'm Renée Safrata, and in the last video, we talked about the importance of clearly defining a task and what success looks like, because before you can develop people effectively, you need clarity around the work itself.
But once the task is clear, a new question emerges.
Where is this person today?
And that's where competence and motivation come in.
One of the biggest mistakes that leaders make is treating performance as if it's a single issue.
It's not.
Performance is made up of two very different things, competence and motivation.
And both are task specific.
A person can be highly competent in one area and completely inexperienced in another.
They can be highly motivated on one project and completely disengaged on another.
That's why great leaders don't ask, is this a good employee?
They ask, what is this employee's competence and motivation level based on the specific task that they're dealing with.
Take Drew for example.
Drew manages a strong project coordinator.
When it comes to organizing schedules and managing timelines, the employee absolutely excels.
Work is accurate, deadlines are met, very little supervision is needed.
But when Drew asks the same employee to lead a stakeholder meeting, everything changes.
Confidence drops, communication becomes hesitant, and the employee starts looking for direction at every step of the way.
Drew initially thinks this employee is struggling, but the issue isn't performance, the issue is that the employee's competence level is different on this particular task.
At Vivo Team, we encourage leaders to assess competence and motivation.
Competence is the ability to consistently produce the desired result on the specific task.
It includes technical skills, job knowledge, and the ability to effectively work with others.
While motivation is different, motivation is about a person's willingness to keep up, keep going despite setbacks.
It shows up through interest, risk taking, and responsibility and accountability.
The key is that both are task specific.
So before deciding how to lead someone, ask yourself, how competent are they at this task and how motivated are they at this task.
Because those answers determine what kind of support they actually need when leaders fail to diagnose competence and motivation accurately, they often provide the wrong support.
They micromanage capable people.
They delegate too quickly to inexperienced people.
They mistake low competence for low motivation and low motivation for low competence, and performance suffers.
Not because people can't succeed, but because the leader misdiagnosed the problem.
Great leadership starts with understanding where people are today, but once you've identified a gap in competence or motivation, you still need to have a conversation about it, and that's where we'll go next.
If you're a leader who wants to bring out the best in your people, download Vivo Team's leadership guide, A Taste of Genius, in the link below, because if you invest in your people, the results will follow.