When Presence Replaces Performance
What signals indicate engagement or disconnection?
A weekly question to ponder what matters in your WorkLife.
Each question is drawn from the School of WorkLife Question Banks.
This is the question I want you to sit with today.
What signals indicate engagement or disconnection?
Let’s explore the question through a character I created.
Sarah.
Sarah is the main protagonist in the Story Lesson: How to Lead Authentically Through Storytelling.
Her story is featured in the episode: The Stories Behind the Stories: Sarah.
Sarah’s story was told in WorkLife Stories: How to Lead Authentically Through Storytelling — if you haven’t already, reading that story will help you recognise the signals of engagement and disconnection in your own leadership conversations and go deeper with this question.
Sarah’s Signals
Sarah had learned to read a room by leaving her script behind.
Once she learned to read the signals — she couldn’t stop seeing them.
Not just in her own team.
In every room she walked into.
When the company announced an acquisition eight months after the restructuring, Sarah watched how other leaders responded to their teams.
The signals were everywhere.
In some rooms — people sat back.
Arms folded.
Questions that protected rather than explored.
A particular kind of stillness that wasn’t attention.
It was waiting.
Waiting to be managed through something.
In her own room — something different.
People leaning forward.
Questions about what they could shape.
Conversations about what mattered to them and why.
Same announcement.
Different rooms.
Different signals.
The difference wasn’t the news.
It was whether people felt led or partnered with.
When Tom Couldn’t Answer
When Tom came to her, he described his team as polite and productive.
He couldn’t understand what was missing.
Sarah heard the signal immediately.
Polite means people are managing their response to you.
Productive means they’re completing what’s asked — it says nothing about whether the thinking is theirs.
Neither means they’re present.
She asked Tom one question.
When did you last see someone in your team surprised by their own idea?
He couldn’t answer.
Sarah shared her own three stories first.
Her passion — helping people navigate uncertainty.
Her success — the breakthrough when she finally led from that passion.
Her failure — eighteen months of competence that never became connection.
Then she asked Tom about his.
What drives you — not the career reasons, but what genuinely drives you to lead people?
And something shifted in the conversation.
Tom began to find his own answers.
He shared his three stories with his team.
Asked them what possibilities he wasn’t seeing in their work.
Two weeks later his team meeting felt different.
People proposed ideas they had been keeping to themselves.
Asked for challenges that would stretch them.
The conversation went somewhere Tom hadn’t directed it.
That was the signal he had been waiting for.
And now he understood how to create the conditions for it.
Maya and the Wrong Signal
In the leadership development programme, Sarah watched emerging leaders encounter the same thing.
She asked each participant to identify their three stories.
What genuinely drives your leadership?
When have you led from that passion and seen real impact?
When has leading from competence alone limited your effectiveness?
Maya’s passion was creating environments where people could do their best work without unnecessary barriers.
But when Sarah asked what signal had told her something was wrong before she acted on that passion — Maya paused.
She described a team that completed tasks perfectly.
And never once pushed back.
No friction.
No questions.
No surprises.
That’s the signal, Sarah said.
When people stop pushing back — they’ve stopped engaging.
They’re performing compliance.
Not bringing their thinking.
Maya had been reading the wrong signal.
Smooth performance had felt like success.
It was disconnection wearing the face of efficiency.
Once she saw it — she knew what her passion required her to do.
Remove the barriers.
Create the conditions.
And trust that the friction of genuine engagement would return.
It did.
What the Signals Revealed
That’s what Sarah discovered about signals.
Engagement is rarely loud.
Disconnection is rarely obvious.
Both show up in the small things.
Whether people surprise themselves.
Whether questions explore or protect.
Whether friction is present or absent.
The signal isn’t in what people say. It’s in what they stop doing.
And once you learn to read it — you stop managing the room you expected and start responding to the room you’re actually in.
So the question isn’t just Sarah’s.
It’s yours.
What signals indicate engagement or disconnection?
Today’s question is from Creating Three Fundamental Stories That Define Your Identity: Success, Failure and Passion Stories Question Bank — from the section Adapting Stories to Context.
Deepen the practice with the WorkLife Compass Guided Programme:The Art of WorkLife Storytelling: Creating Three Fundamental Stories That Define Your Identity Programme Crafting Success, Failure, and Passion Narratives with Powerful Beginnings, Engaging Middles, and Memorable Endings
Work With Me: Commissioned learning resources, speaking engagements, and organisational partnerships.
Support This Work: Your support makes a difference and helps me to continue creating resources that are accessible to everyone. Thank you. Carmel
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