Asking for Help
Good leaders ask for help, and they accept help when it’s offered.
Context
I was talking to my mom recently about what it was like for her to raise three kids work full time and still get a two master’s degrees and a certification. Now that I’m struggling to juggle school, entrepreneurship, finances, and my relationship, I have an entirely new appreciation for what she was doing from the early 2000s to the mid-2010s. Can you imagine trying to raise a set of triplets in middle school largely on your own with a teacher’s salary while completing a master’s degree?
When I asked my mom how she juggled all of these priorities and complete her degrees, she said, “I honestly don’t know how I did it, son. If you asked me to do it again now, I don’t think I’d be able to.” As an elementary school student and even later as a high school student, I didn’t quite understand what it meant that she was “getting a master’s degree”. I barely remember what was going on in our lives during that time (I have infamously bad memory). As we were talking and going back through our memories of that time, however, I did remember being sometimes intrigued, but more often annoyed because my mom regularly called me into her room to ask for help.
Can you imagine trying to raise a set of triplets largely on your own on a teacher’s salary while completing a master’s degree?
When I was younger, she would ask me to get her some tea because it was going to be a late night for her. In my highschool years, she would ask me to read a paragraph and tell her what my opinion of it was or to proofread her papers. Regardless of the request, I have distinct memories of being at my mom’s side helping to explain things based on what we’d learned in my advanced English class and putting a little extra sugar in her tea to give her a little bit of a pick me up.
Good leaders ask for help, and they accept help when it’s offered.
I wasn't the only person who she asked for help though. The more we talked, the more I remembered her asking two different neighbors to watch over my sisters and I—one person to make sure we got to the bus stop on time in the morning, and one person to keep an eye on us after school until she got home (or later until we were old enough to be home by ourselves for a few hours without risking a fire hazard).
She got support to pick us up after school when we became involved in extracurriculars from the man who became a second father to us.
All these years later, I not only hold dearly to these memories, but I also can appreciate how they encouraged my growth as a student, surrounded me with interesting, caring people, and set a great model for what good leadership should be. Good leaders ask for help, and they accept help when it’s offered. I feel like parents, like many positional leaders, sometimes find it difficult to ask for help. It’s easy to believe that because of the position that we are in, we are supposed to know everything and handle all problems by ourselves, to think that our job as a leader is to handle the big stuff and let those that we are leading worry about the small stuff that they can handle until they’re ready to take on the big problems; this way of thinking and habit of not asking for help does a disservice to both ourselves and to the people who we are trying to serve.
Help As A Learning Opportunity
As leaders, when we ask those that we are leading to help us, we give them opportunities to contribute more tangibly to our goals. My mom wasn’t doing it on purpose, but by asking for my help, she empowered me to use what I’d learned in school to help our family. After all, if she finished her degree, she’d get a pay raise and we’d be able to reduce some of our family’s financial pressure.
Opportunities to help allow others to feel affirmed in their ability and feel valued on their team. By asking for my help, my mom also made me feel affirmed in my English ability (I had just switched to advanced English courses and sometimes second-guessed my ability to keep up), and this spurred me to work hard in my classes because I wanted to be able to help her more effectively. Leaders can incite the same feeling in their teams when they ask for help.
We open opportunities for those we lead to grow into even better leaders by asking for help. The fact that I remember this experience even now and can make a connection to how I can lead others around me is proof of this. When we let others help, they get to see what it looks like to lead others first-hand. They get to execute and ask questions to those with experience. They even get to help us avoid mistakes by pointing out things in our blindspots. This experience not only prepares them to step into new leadership roles but also provides an example of how to empower their teams when they enter those leadership roles.
Asking for help is difficult, but important. If my mom didn’t ask for help (I’m sure she had more help from others that I wasn’t aware of), who knows if she would have finished her degree in the same time frame, or even at all. She admitted to me that it was difficult, and I can imagine. If she had burned out, it wouldn’t have only affected her school work, it would have negatively affected her job and our life at home because she simply wouldn’t have been able to maintain the same quality of output. When leaders don’t ask for help, we deprive those we lead of the best version of ourselves. By focusing too much on trying to do everything on our own, the things that we often execute well just cannot be executed to the same standard.
…this way of thinking and habit of not asking for help does a disservice to both ourselves and to the people who we are trying to serve.
My mom is an amazing mother and leader. Among all of the things that she’s taught me, one of the most useful is that asking for help is not a sign of an incapable leader. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. Asking for help it's a sign of a competent leader who knows that it’s not just about making significant accomplishments; it's about empowering others and creating a sustainable impact. Next time you find yourself struggling along your leadership journey, take a second to ask, do you need help?