The Difference Between Valuing People and Simply Needing What They Bring
There is a subtle trap in leadership that I think many of us encounter.
We want to be needed.
We want people to call us, consult us, ask our opinion, invite us into the meeting, and depend on our expertise.
There is something affirming about knowing that an organization or team cannot quite move forward without us.
It feels like value.
But I am increasingly convinced that being needed and being valuable are not the same thing.
And there is another distinction that may be even more important:
People should never have to be needed in a particular moment to know that they are valued.
Too often, organizations communicate value transactionally.
We reach for people when we need their expertise. We invite them into the room when their knowledge can solve today’s problem. We call when there is a crisis. We ask for their perspective when it is convenient.
Then, when the immediate need passes, so does our attention.
That isn’t valuing people.
That’s using their value.
And leadership has to be better than that.
People Are More Than Their Gifts
Every strong team has people who bring something unique.
Someone understands the data.
Someone can build the strategy.
Someone knows the history.
Someone writes exceptionally well.
Someone understands people.
Someone can see around corners.
Someone knows how to take an idea and turn it into something executable.
Great leaders recognize those gifts and create opportunities for people to use them.
But there is a danger.
We can become so focused on what people produce that we stop paying attention to the people themselves.
We call when we need the presentation.
The analysis.
The plan.
The relationship.
The solution.
The difficult conversation.
Then we disappear until we need something else.
Over time, people begin to understand the relationship:
You value what I can do for you more than you value me.
That is not collaboration.
It is extraction.
And no matter how often we use words like team, family, or partnership, people eventually recognize the difference.
Leadership Is Not Taking Credit for Other People’s Gifts
There is another version of this that deserves to be named.
Leaders are often surrounded by extraordinarily talented people.
That is exactly how it should be.
Our teams may develop the strategy, analyze the information, create the presentation, solve the problem, build the relationship, design the process, or generate the idea that ultimately moves the organization forward.
As leaders, we may be the ones who eventually present that work.
But we should never confuse presenting the work with creating it.
And we should never allow others to make that mistake either.
There is a difference between leading talented people and simply benefiting from their talent.
If someone else did the thinking, say so.
If a team created the solution, name them.
If an idea came from someone else, give them credit.
If someone’s expertise made you look prepared, make sure people understand who actually did the preparation.
Leadership is not collecting other people’s gifts and presenting the collection as evidence of our own brilliance.
In fact, I think strong leadership does almost the opposite.
It shines the light outward.
A secure leader can say:
“She developed this.”
“He saw something I missed.”
“This team did extraordinary work.”
“That wasn’t my idea.”
“They deserve the credit.”
None of that diminishes the leader.
It actually reveals one of leadership’s greatest strengths:
the ability to create conditions where talented people can do exceptional work—and then make sure they are seen for it.
Value People When You Don’t Need Anything
This may be where the distinction becomes most important.
There will be times when I do not need someone’s expertise.
There will be meetings where their presence is unnecessary.
There will be decisions outside their area of responsibility.
There will be moments when someone else is better positioned to lead.
None of those things should diminish that person’s sense of value to the team.
Strong leaders communicate value between moments of need.
We check in when we are not asking for something.
We recognize contributions after the crisis has passed.
We invest in people’s development even when there is no immediate organizational payoff.
We ask about their aspirations.
We notice their growth.
We create opportunities for them to lead.
And sometimes we simply ask:
“How are you doing?”
Without following it with:
“And while I have you…”
People know the difference between being valued and being useful.
We should make sure they experience the former.
Alignment Is Not Everyone Looking at the Leader
This connects directly to alignment and collaboration.
True alignment is not everyone looking toward the leader.
It is everyone looking toward the same purpose.
Healthy teams can disagree.
They can challenge one another.
Different people can lead at different times.
Not everyone’s expertise has to be activated in every decision.
Sometimes my work is central.
Sometimes yours is.
Sometimes the best contribution I can make is supporting what someone else is leading.
That becomes much easier when people do not feel they have to constantly demonstrate their usefulness in order to remain relevant.
When people know they are valued, they can step back without feeling invisible.
They can celebrate a colleague without feeling diminished.
They can share information without protecting territory.
They can disagree without believing the relationship is at risk.
They can focus on the work instead of constantly worrying about their place in it.
That is alignment.
And it requires leaders to create cultures where belonging is not dependent upon usefulness.
Collaboration Is Not Extraction
We also need to be careful with the word collaboration.
A meeting is not collaboration.
A committee is not necessarily collaboration.
And reaching out to someone only when we need their expertise is not collaboration.
That is a transaction.
True collaboration exists before the need arises.
It is built through relationships, trust, candor, shared information, mutual respect, and genuine interest in the people doing the work.
If the only time I meaningfully engage someone is when I need something from them, I should not be surprised when the relationship eventually feels transactional.
And if I repeatedly use someone’s talent and then allow their contribution to disappear behind my title, I am not building collaboration.
I am consuming it.
Great leaders do something different.
They bring people into the work.
They clarify ownership.
They share the stage.
They recognize expertise.
They distribute credit.
And they understand that developing other people’s visibility does not diminish their own.
Stop Making It About Us
Much of this ultimately comes back to ego.
Who received the credit?
Who was invited?
Whose idea was chosen?
Who gets to speak?
Who gets recognized?
Sometimes those questions reveal legitimate exclusion.
But sometimes we become so consumed with protecting our own significance that we distract ourselves from the mission.
A useful question for leaders is:
Is this about advancing the work—or preserving my importance within it?
That question requires honesty.
Because leadership should never become a competition to demonstrate who is most essential.
The work has to be bigger than any of us.
Especially in schools.
Children do not care whose idea improved their school.
They do not care which department received credit.
They do not care whose name appeared on the presentation.
They need adults capable of aligning around what matters, sharing expertise, giving credit, resisting territorialism, and keeping the mission at the center.
A Different Measure of Leadership
Perhaps we need to measure leadership differently.
Not:
How many people need me?
But:
How many people are stronger because I am here?
Not:
How much credit do I receive?
But:
How many people have I helped become visible for their contributions?
Not:
How often am I at the center of the work?
But:
Does the work continue effectively when I am not?
And perhaps most importantly:
Do the people I lead know that I value them even when I don’t need anything from them?
That last question stays with me.
Because leadership is temporary.
Titles change.
Organizations evolve.
Eventually, someone else sits in the chair.
What remains are the people we developed, the relationships we built, the systems we strengthened, the trust we earned, and the way people remember feeling when they worked with us.
Were they merely useful to us?
Or did they know they mattered?
A Final Reflection
The strongest leaders do not collect talented people around themselves to appear more talented.
They create environments where talented people become even better—and make sure those people receive the recognition they deserve.
They do not tap into relationships only when they need something.
They invest before the need.
They stay connected after it.
They share credit.
They acknowledge expertise.
They allow other people to shine.
And they resist the temptation to make collective success evidence of their individual importance.
Because the goal is not to become indispensable.
The goal is to make an indispensable contribution to something larger than ourselves.
So perhaps the question we should ask is not:
“Do they need me?”
It is:
“Do they know I value them?”
Not just their expertise.
Not just their productivity.
Not just their connections.
Not just what they can do for me.
Them.
And if the people around us only hear from us when we need something, only become visible when their gifts serve our agenda, or watch us receive credit for work they actually carried—
we should not call that leadership.
We should call it what it is.
And then we should have enough humility to change it.
People are not resources to be tapped.
They are human beings to be valued.
When they know that, collaboration becomes real, alignment becomes stronger, trust becomes possible, and the work finally becomes what it should have been all along:
bigger than any one of us.
I am applauding you and cheering you on for this wise and imperative look at leadership! What resonates with me is “collaboration is not extraction”. Indeed! In my former position as a veteran classroom teacher, it was not easy to see or accept that that was what was routinely happening. It felt good to be a problem-solver and to be depended on, and it felt good to do some of the heavy lifting for my overburdened colleagues. It can become a slippery slope, and I finally had the realization that exploitation is not a badge of honor. I think this nuanced lens of leadership is accurately described as a “trap”. We tend to look to the people pleasers and the reliable ones we can count on in our circle, but as you eloquently point out, today’s crisis management should not be the only time there is a feeling of value. In our work, we hear all the time, and we know in our core that relationships are everything. They are foundational and critically important to doing this work. The people in the trenches with us, doing the work and investing alongside us, deserve so much more than a surface-level transactional “value”.