Leadership Caffeine: Learning to Ask for Help
Filed under: Career, Decision-Making, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Professional Growth
I’ve not met a person yet that doesn’t need help from time to time, and this goes double for anyone in a leadership role. Leadership is frequently lonely and those that take their role seriously truly fret over decisions surrounded by ambiguity.
The pressure to “figure it out” is tremendous, partially imposed by our fast moving and politically charged working environments, and partially imposed by our own misguided sense that to show that we need help is to show weakness.
I’ve known otherwise good leaders that derailed because they ended up in situations where Solomon himself might have sought advice, yet personal and perceived environmental pressures kept them from reaching out to others.
And yes, some of the fears and pressures are real. There’s no doubt in my mind that there is a boundary line that can be crossed where a person goes from legitimately needing help to just plain needy. Your challenge is to learn to use “Help” as a tool and to honor that boundary.
7 Ideas for Properly and Professionally Asking for Help
1. Organize the situation to quickly and clearly create context for others. Chances are that you will spend a great deal of time processing on the problem at hand before you reach out and ask for input. What’s clear in your mind may sound fairly random and confusing to someone else unless you organize your message. Frame the situation and issues clearly and concisely before reaching out to a boss, peer or colleague. (See my post on message mapping as a tool.)
2. Identify the risks of not addressing the situation to show that you have thought through the implications to the team, the individual or the firm. But be careful not to over-state or over-dramatize the risks or the next time through, you won’t be taken seriously. (See also, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”) Highlight the most salient issues and implications as part of your narrative.
3. Never ask for help naked. OK, now that I have your attention, what I mean to say is, form and frame your key questions for help ahead of time. If you deliver your narrative and then just stop or, throw out the, “I’m just not certain what to do,” statement, you are passing the problem over to someone else, and they will resist and even resent this move on your part.
After describing your narrative and summarizing your risks, suggest a finite number of your best alternatives and break down the pros and cons of each. Ask for input, ask what other questions jump to mind, ask about prior experiences, and don’t be afraid to offer your own favored solution and ask for feedback.
4. Never ask, “What do you think I should do?” This is another question that leaves you exposed and attempts to shift your burden to someone else. Remember, it’s your job to tell us what you think you should do and the other person’s job to help you think through your logic.
5. Learn your manager’s help style. Most managers are OK offering help if you approach them properly. Take the time to study and learn your manager’s preferences when it comes to guiding others. Some enjoy getting into the details and others want the big picture along with your assessment of risks and your favored recommendations. Pursue giving too much detail to the latter manager or jump too far ahead of the manager that feels good helping you work through the issues, and you’ve misfired and missed a good opportunity to strengthen your relationship with your boss.
6. Tap into your peer network. Everyone should invest time cultivating group of individuals that will provide unvarnished feedback and will serve as an informal board of advisors. It takes effort to develop a quality network, but the dividends are potentially huge. Having one or more trusted advisors that are willing to help you sift through and sort out the hairy workplace and marketplace problems is important for all of us.
7. Don’t forget to tap into your team. While this may seem counter-intuitive and it certainly flies in the face of the mistaken self-image of the all-knowing boss, your team members might have a collectively clear view to the problem and potential solutions. And the act of asking and then listening to your team members will do wonders for your credibility.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
I missed the day that they were handing out the “all-knowing” hats and chances are that you did as well. We all need help from time to time and it’s both wise and acceptable to seek it out in the proper fashion. Asking for help is not an admission of weakness it’s an attempt to tap into the strengths of others. Just remember that you own the heavy lifting required to reach the point where others will gladly shoulder a bit of the burden.
Beware Contracting “I’m Right, You’re Wrong” Disease?
Filed under: "To Do" List, Leadership, Professional Growth, Surviving Lousy Leaders
It’s time to add another malady to the long list of things that bedevil the many lousy leaders walking unencumbered through our workplaces. It’s called, “I’m Right and You’re Wrong” (IRYW) disease, and while it’s not fatal, it’s clearly annoying to people and debilitating to performance.
Frankly, leaders that suffer from IRYW disease just piss other people off, while stifling creativity and innovation and casually squashing the souls of everyone they encounter.
IRYW sufferers take on many forms, depending upon how far along the disease is in warping their personalities. You might recognize it in one of the following forms:
- The boss that encourages input but never takes it. Ever.
- The boss or co-worker that gets visibly angry when someone disagrees with him/her.
- The manager that habitually throws dissenters under the bus.
- The manager or co-worker that always has to have the last word.
- The leaders that look at you as if you’ve grown two heads when you gather up the courage to share an idea or offer an alternative option.
Unfortunately, we run into this malady in our personal lives as well. We almost all have the relative or friend that is the self-anointed expert and this can be particularly problematic in households when it is a significant other or even an in-law. Feel free to offer up your own coping strategies from these examples…we’ll all learn in the process.
How You Can Avoid Catching “I’m Right, You’re Wrong” Disease:
-Take a daily dose of humility. Remind yourself when you walk in the door that your role is to help others to succeed, not to show everyone how smart you are.
-Set up an early warning system. While granted that it takes a fair amount of emotional intelligence to recognize that this is good, many brilliant and successful leaders cultivate peer relationships where they encourage feedback, including the “quit acting like a jerk” kind. I’ve had two of these colleagues for years, and their occasional clubbing over the head has been remarkably helpful.
-While it’s cliché, hire people smarter than you. Do this right and you’ll not only gain the benefits of their considerable intelligence, but you’ll double your efforts to help them and earn their respect, as you certainly won’t be able to play and get away with IRYW.
-Stay out of environments where you might be tempted to incorrectly assert yourself and damage the group dynamics. Some bosses have no business in group brainstorming sessions. If you’re one, find something else to do.
Surviving a Boss with “I’m Right, You’re Wrong” Disease:
-Recognize that for this individual, it’s really important to feel like they are right. Since were not psychologists here, we’ll have to pass on analyzing childhood issues or assessing other compensating factors and fous on developing some patience.
-A fair number of IRYW sufferers are harmless. They revel in their own seeming brilliance, but their survival instinct allows them to accept ideas and input…especially if they think they prompted the ideas. Again, we’re not psychologists, but you should use some psychology here. Hey, if you are as smart as you think you are, this one should be easy!
-For those that are in the advanced and more dangerous stages of IRYW, this is truly a challenge. I have no qualms attempting to give my boss quality feedback, even if I’m politely telling her that she is an ass, but in these lean job times, many will shy away from that tactic. Either develop moral courage, developing a coping strategy or start looking.
-If this boss provides you latitude to do your work, stay out of his/her way, execute, provide clear, formal updates and if you face a controversial decision, ask for input. Your very professional demeanor may have a neutralizing affect (to some extent) and your asking for input is a reasonable form of managing upwards in this case.
If you as readers have any other advice, we’re all ears!
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Make no bones about it, my emphasis is on working with good people wanting to become great. The failing in all of the writing and talking about effective leadership is that the lousy leaders rarely pay attention and definitely don’t recognize themselves. To those non-readers, enjoy your life For those of you aspiring and growing as professionals, take this as a polite reminder that you don’t need to be right all of the time. If you suddenly finding everyone agreeing with you, you may want to phone a friend and ask for a quick attitude adjustment.
Leadership Caffeine-Create Success by Managing Your Response to Failure
Filed under: "To Do" List, Career, Crisis Leadership, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Performance, Professional Growth
No one wants to fail. It’s not something that we typically seek out as part of our personal and organizational character building experience. However, from a distance, we tend to mythologize failure, especially in the context of achieving future success.
Run a web search on some phrases built around failure, and you’ll come up with quite a few reflecting a very true statement, “Failure is a teacher.” Our histories and leadership legends all benefit from the context of understanding the final outcome of the story, but the telling of the story doesn’t adequately capture the powerful emotional forces that occur at the moment of failure.
Certainly, the stories are right and the lessons instructional. They inspire us to persevere, but the failure-leading to-success legends don’t guide us how to respond and cope in the moment.
In my own experience (personal and as a leader supporting others), the moment of failure is filled with a swirl of emotions ranging from anger to frustration to a deep depression-like funk. In particular, for individuals that have experienced only success in life and career, and yes there are those that enjoy mostly charmed existences due to their skills and perhaps some good fortune, the moment of failure feels much like being transported to an alien landscape where suddenly everything is not as it should be.
As a leader seeking to help team members through a dark point in time, or perhaps dealing personally with your own failure disorientation, here are a number of suggestions to help light the way.
Five Ideas to Help You and Your Team Members Cope with a Setback:
1. Speed is of the essence. The faster you can help everyone move from “what just happened?” to “what next?” the faster you pass through the cold, alien landscape of failure. Linger too long on an extended self-pity party and you might as well set up camp and become a permanent resident. Your goal must be to move through this phase or process in a hurry.
2. Don’t get caught up in blaming the world. Does it really help to blame everything and everyone else for the failure? Once again, attempt to move quickly to “what next?” or you risk an extended stay in the land where “yelling into and shaking your fist at the wind” is a national pastime. It might feel good for a moment, but eventually, it’s just dumb.
3. Beat yourself with a wet noodle and move on! If the failure is personal, resist the urge to blame your lack of ability. The destructive “I’m not smart enough/good enough” mentality likes to attach itself to your frontal lobe and take root, ensuring a growing problem with self-doubt. Instead, admit that you made mistakes, that you failed to exert enough effort to properly see or deal with the issue and once again, jump on the “OK, I won’t make those mistakes again…what next?” train.
4. Failures are often not performance problems. Don’t confuse the two Leader, please don’t make failure a punishable offense. Individual or team failures are different than performance problems and you should treat them as such. Too many leaders allow untreated performance issues to infect team environments, and then they attack the team, not the root cause of the underperformer. Don’t misdiagnose and mistreat here or the failure disease will spread.
5. Your time and asking the right questions will help your team members start moving forward. For individual failures, it is essential for you to create some one-on-one time and allow the failure/grieving process to unfold. Your role here is to listen and ask questions such as:
- What went wrong?
- What did you learn?
- How can you prevent this from recurring?
- What are your ideas for moving forward?
- How can I help?
Remember to set a follow-up discussion to ensure that the individual is back on track and focus on the challenges looking forward instead of the issues that are increasingly distant in the rear-view mirror.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Dealing with adversity is one of the core challenges of the leader. Developing a coping strategy for yourself and your team is essential for success. The legends and myths of failure are right…they do provide critical learning opportunities and teachable moments. Nonetheless, the fact that you or your team members are benefitting from one of these “priceless” moments offers little help or comfort at the moment of failure. Understanding how to leverage the emotions and the energy of the situations will help you create your own legends and examples. It will also reduce the unhealthy fear of failure that stifles so much creativity.
You don’t have to embrace or smile at failure. Instead, kick it in the teeth and use the emotional energy to propel you and your team forward.
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