As a manager, you always have to make choices. Your professional development budget probably cannot cover everyone, and you may not have the time or resources to develop every employee at once. That leaves you with a decision: Who should you invest in first?

The easy choice would be to send the employee who asks or the person who is visibly struggling the most. But the easy choice is not always the right choice. Sometimes the best investment is the person who is not struggling at all.

In fact, they may be one of your better employees. They know their job, people trust them, and you can give them more responsibility without worrying about whether the work will get done. The question is not whether they are capable. The question is what could happen if you helped them become capable of even more.

The employees worth developing first are often the ones whose growth will affect more than their own performance. They may be preparing for promotion, beginning to influence important decisions, or taking on work that requires other people to follow their direction. If developing one employee improves the performance of everyone around them, that investment begins to multiply.

Start With the Employees Whose Growth Will Affect Other People

Consider the difference between someone who spends most of the day working independently and someone who spends the day explaining ideas, influencing decisions, managing projects, and giving direction.

Both employees may be valuable. But developing the second person can have a much greater effect on the organization because their performance affects the work of other people. When they become more effective, meetings improve, decisions become clearer, and the people around them have a better understanding of what needs to happen.

This is where the obvious choice may not be the best choice. You are not necessarily looking for the employee with the biggest weakness. You are looking for the employee whose development could have the greatest effect.

Look for the Gap Between Their Current Ability and Their Potential

Look for the person others go to for help, whether it is with a technical question or because everyone trusts their judgment. This is the person you can give a problem to and know they will probably solve it.

But there may still be something holding them back from making a larger contribution. They may know the answer but struggle to explain it to senior management. They may be comfortable doing the work but less comfortable presenting a recommendation, gaining support for an idea, or directing other people.

That gap is the development opportunity.

The company has probably already invested years in building this person’s knowledge and experience. Their expertise is there. Their judgment is there. What may be missing is the ability to make that expertise useful at a higher level of the organization.

Developing this employee is not about correcting a failure. It is about removing the obstacle that stands between what they can do now and what they may be capable of doing next.

Pay Attention to the People Others Already Follow

There is another group of employees companies do not always think about developing first. These are the people who already have influence, whether they have a leadership title or not.

You can usually identify them when something changes. Explain a new decision, policy, or direction to the group, then watch what happens afterward. Which employee do the others go to when they want to understand what the change really means? Whose reaction helps shape how everyone else responds?

That is the person with influence.

They may not manage anyone, and they may not be the most senior person in the room. But other employees trust their judgment and want to know what they think. Helping that person become a stronger communicator and decision-maker can affect how information moves through the entire group.

Most managers already know who this person is because they are often considering them for a future leadership role. This is the employee you may eventually ask to manage a team, take over an important project, or represent the department in higher-level meetings.

It makes more sense to begin developing that person before the promotion rather than waiting until they are six months into the new job and struggling.

Look at Who Is About to Take on More Responsibility

Another way to prioritize employee development is to look forward instead of backward. Who are you thinking about promoting during the next year? Is someone beginning to sit in on higher-level meetings? Are they being asked to present recommendations rather than simply completing the work?

An employee’s job often starts changing before the title does. They begin managing projects involving several departments. They are asked to explain decisions, gain support for recommendations, or accomplish more through other people.

That is the employee you want to prepare.

They may need to influence people who do not report to them. They may have to defend a recommendation when it is challenged or explain a complicated issue to someone outside their area of expertise. These are situations you want them prepared for before the promotion, not when they are already in the middle of the job and the stakes are higher.

When you know someone is moving toward a larger role, professional development becomes preparation instead of repair.

Consider the People Leading Without Authority

Some employees are expected to lead even though no one involved reports directly to them. They manage projects involving different departments, competing priorities, and people who may have little reason to treat their request as urgent.

They cannot rely on a title to get cooperation. They have to explain what needs to happen, show people why it matters, and create enough clarity that everyone understands what they need to do next.

A capable employee can still struggle when the job changes from completing their own work to getting several groups moving in the same direction. Their technical ability may have earned them the responsibility, but technical ability alone may not be enough to make the project successful.

Developing these employees can improve more than their personal performance. It can reduce delays, prevent confusion, and help different parts of the organization work together more effectively.

Prepare New Managers Before Their Teams Pay the Price

A strong individual performer does not automatically become a strong manager. The employee may know the work better than anyone else, but that does not mean they know how to explain expectations, give useful feedback, lead meetings, or communicate decisions people may not like.

Before the promotion, their habits primarily affect their own performance. After the promotion, those same habits affect everyone they manage.

When a manager communicates clearly, the team understands its priorities, makes better decisions, and spends less time trying to figure out what was meant. When the manager does not communicate clearly, the confusion spreads.

This is why preparing a new manager can provide a greater return than assigning development based only on who appears to be struggling. You are not simply helping one employee improve. You are affecting how an entire team functions.

Do Not Use Development Only to Correct Problems

Sometimes companies get professional development backward because they wait for something to go wrong before offering help. Someone gives a bad presentation. A meeting goes nowhere. A client misunderstands a recommendation. A newly promoted manager cannot get the team to follow their direction.

Now the training feels corrective. The employee is left wondering what they did wrong, even though no one prepared them for a job that required a different set of skills.

Instead, make development something good employees receive because you expect more from them, not because you are disappointed in what they are doing. Prepare them for the next responsibility before it exposes a gap they may not know they have.

At Effective Presentations, we have worked with more than 100,000 professionals over more than 20 years. One thing we have seen repeatedly is that the people with the most to contribute are not always the people receiving development first. Companies often wait until a strong employee begins struggling in a larger role before providing the skills that could have prepared them for it.

For employees moving toward greater responsibility, developing stronger presentation skills before the next promotion can make far more sense than waiting until the new responsibilities expose the gap.

How Can You Identify the Right Employees to Develop?

Start by looking at the people you are considering promoting or giving more responsibility during the next year. Then look at the effect their growth could have on the organization.

Does this person have more ability than their current role allows them to use?
They may already be performing well, but are there skills that would allow them to contribute at a higher level? Could they lead a project, represent the department, or help other employees perform more effectively?

Are other people already influenced by them?
Do employees ask what they think before making a decision? When something changes, do people look to this person for help understanding it? A person does not need a management title to have influence.

Are they likely to take on more responsibility?
Look past their current title. Is there someone who may soon be managing people, projects, client relationships, or important decisions? What will the next role require that the current role does not?

Is there a specific gap holding them back?
They may need to communicate more clearly, lead meetings, manage conflict, give feedback, present recommendations, or influence people across departments. The clearer you are about the gap, the easier it becomes to choose development that will actually help.

Would developing this person improve anyone else’s performance?
This may be the biggest question to answer. If helping one employee grow improves their team, their meetings, their projects, and the performance of the people around them, then you are not really developing just one person. The investment spreads.

Your Best Candidate May Not Be Your Biggest Problem

If you are only using professional development to fix problems, then you are missing much of its potential value. Your best candidate may already be doing well. You may already be planning to promote them.

It may be a technical expert who needs a bigger voice because everyone already trusts their judgment. It may be an informal leader other employees already follow. It may be a project manager who needs cooperation from several departments or a new manager who is about to take responsibility for a larger team.

You already know they have many of the skills they need. Development gives them the ability to take on more responsibility while having a greater effect on the people around them.

Once you decide who should receive that investment, the next question is what they actually need to improve. That requires looking at the situations where they are struggling and identifying the specific communication training need instead of assuming everyone needs the same program.

So, the question is not simply, “Who needs training?” A better question is, “Whose growth is going to matter more a year from now than it does today?”

That question usually points you toward the employees worth developing first.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which employees should a company invest in developing first?

Start with employees whose growth is likely to affect other people or prepare them for greater responsibility. This often includes high-potential employees, informal leaders, technical experts, project managers, new managers, and people being considered for promotion.

How do you identify high-potential employees?

Look for employees who consistently perform well, solve difficult problems, earn the trust of others, and show the ability to take on responsibilities beyond their current role. Pay attention to who other employees already turn to for judgment and direction.

Should professional development focus on struggling employees?

Not exclusively. Corrective development has a place, but investing in strong employees can prepare them for larger roles and produce a greater return for the organization. Development should address current problems while also building future capability.

Why should companies develop employees before promoting them?

A promotion frequently requires new skills that the employee has not needed before. Developing those skills beforehand gives the employee time to prepare and reduces the chance that the new responsibility will expose an avoidable weakness.

How should managers prioritize a limited professional development budget?

Consider the employee’s potential, future responsibilities, current influence, specific development gaps, and the effect their improvement could have on other people. The strongest investment is often the employee whose growth will improve more than their own performance.