I was reading an article in Inc. Magazine this morning about Steve Jobs and a simple habit he used to treat his high performers differently from everyone else.

It wasn’t about micromanaging.
It wasn’t about checking boxes.
And it definitely wasn’t about “staying out of their way entirely.”

It was about thoughtful interaction.

Here’s the part that resonated with me—and that I see play out constantly in sales organizations:

Top performers still need their manager. Just not in the way many managers think.

High performers don’t need to be told what to do. They don’t need activity policing or deal-by-deal oversight.

What Top Performers do need is:

• A sounding board to pressure-test ideas
• Help prioritizing strategies when everything looks like an opportunity
• Someone to challenge their thinking and expand their options
• Space to crystallize what’s already in their head

And what the manager needs from her interactions with top performers is a way to spot what they’re doing well and cascade those best practices to the rest of the team.

It’s about coaching, not controlling.

When coaching sales managers, I suggest they use a coaching matrix to identify:

• Which reps benefit most from deeper, more frequent coaching
• Which high performers only need small, intentional blocks of time

This helps managers understand where to invest their time to move the needle.

Here’s the risk for micro-managing your top performers that isn’t discussed enough:
Micromanaging top performers doesn’t make them better.
It makes them feel untrusted, unappreciated—and eventually, gone.

The best leaders don’t disappear from their top reps’ world.
They show up differently.