Bijuraj Sarangi

Over the past few decades, one agenda has remained constant for me: turning people into high performers, not just in terms of speed, but in the quality of everything they do.

Speed is easy to chase. Quality takes something deeper. And that “something deeper” almost always starts with the environment we create for our people, the kind that genuinely motivates them to go the extra mile, not because they have to, but because they want to.

Here is what I learnt.

1. Only People Make People Do Better

There’s no substitute for leading by example, and I mean really leading. Rolling up your sleeves. Showing your team that no task is beneath you when the situation calls for it.

A few years ago, a client came to us with an urgent delivery need. The problem? We didn’t have a single resource with relevant industry experience available at that moment. But the client trusted us, and walking away wasn’t an option.

So I asked four senior team members, talented professionals but completely new to this industry, to step up. Naturally, they were anxious. They worried about the timeline, the outcomes, the unfamiliar territory. Imposter syndrome doesn’t spare even the most experienced of us when we step into alien ground.

For the next four months, I took on the co-project lead role alongside my assigned project lead, shadowing the team, driving delivery, carrying the weight alongside them. It added four to five hours to my day, every day. But my intention was clear: get the client what they needed and get the team to genuinely learn on the job.

The shift began within two months. The team started owning more, learning faster, taking initiative. By the third month, they were operating at full steam, and my role had reduced to that of a reviewer.

Two takeaways from that experience:

• People can deliver: if you give them the support and space to learn.
• They need an example: someone fearless enough to lead from the front. Once that’s in place, the momentum builds almost naturally.

2. People Value Being Cared For

When you invest in your people, their professional growth, their mental health, their overall wellbeing, you become a pillar they can fall back on. That’s how you build true belonging.

A few years ago, a team member who had previously worked with me moved to a different team and geography. We lost regular contact for about six to eight months. Then one morning, I received an early call from her, distressed, asking to be pulled out of her current program. The reason: a deeply toxic work environment, with a manager whose behavior was unprofessional and, frankly, unacceptable. She was at her breaking point and considering resigning from the firm entirely.

I asked her to hold on while we worked through it together.

Over the next two weeks, we escalated through the right channels with enough persistence to create real change, not just moving her out of that team, but also replacing the leadership on that program with people who could restore a healthier culture to the work.

Two weeks later, she was out. She joined my group again. She’s still with me today, doing outstanding work across multiple engagements.

Caring for your people isn’t a soft skill. It’s a leadership imperative.

3. People Expect Honest Guidance – When it Matters the Most

There’s a version of “feedback” that people dread, the kind that tells them they’re wrong, that calls out what they did badly without offering a way forward. That version destroys psychological safety.

The feedback that builds people is honest, yes, but it’s constructive. It tells them not just where they fell short, but how they could do it differently. It creates a safe environment to make mistakes and, more importantly, to grow from them.

I’ve been working closely with one of my team members for the better part of a decade now. He’s a strong strategy and consulting professional, and a genuine problem-solver. But a few years ago, I started having ongoing conversations with him about what it takes to go beyond his current role and get ready for the bigger responsibilities ahead: how to present to senior leadership, what he does well in the room, what he could sharpen, how he carries himself when he speaks, how he manages his presence under pressure.

These weren’t one-off reviews. They were continuous, real, honest conversations, the kind that can only happen when there’s mutual trust.

Today, he is consistently recognized as one of the most dependable, independent, and confident professionals across our practice. Quarter after quarter.

Honest guidance, delivered with care, is one of the most powerful gifts a leader can give.

4. People Expect to Be Heard

Whether your team is five people or five hundred, every individual wants to feel that they matter, that their voice counts, that there’s a genuine human equation between them and the people they work with.

When you create that environment, something remarkable happens: people open up, trust grows, and problems that were invisible suddenly become solvable.

I once heard that a particular team member had been placed on a Performance Improvement Plan. Having known her work before, the PIP felt counterintuitive to everything I understood about her. So I proactively reached out, not to fix her, but to listen.

After a few conversations, the picture became much clearer. This wasn’t a capability problem. It was a motivation problem. Something had dimmed the spark.

We started working together, some workstreams she owned independently, others we tackled as a team. Three months later, she led a high-stakes strategy delivery program, dealing directly with senior client executives. A program that other leaders had said was “beyond her remit.”

She delivered it brilliantly. Super happy client. Super happy me.

When we started genuinely hearing her concerns and worked together to address them, her motivation reached a level that made everything possible. Today, she’s independently driving multiple workstreams with minimal supervision.

That’s the magic that happens when we actually listen.

The Bottom Line

High performance isn’t manufactured. It’s cultivated: through the environments we build, the examples we set, the care we extend, the honesty we offer, and the attention we pay to the people standing right in front of us.

Lead by example. Care for your people. Give honest guidance. And above all, listen.

That’s the formula. It’s not complicated. But it takes consistency, patience, and the genuine belief that your people are capable of far more than they’ve yet shown, because the results speak for themselves.