The Goal of Helping is Enabling, Not More Helping
Ego needs to feel important. A ego-filled leader enjoys dependent relationships.
Helping feels good. It’s destructive when people can’t move forward without you.
Reject the ego-building intoxication that comes from being needed.
The goal of helping is enabling:
Over-helping makes people weak. People enable themselves. You provide tools, training, and opportunity.
Belief is the beginning of enabling. Ego enjoys the dependency of others. Leaders help people believe in themselves. If people believe in you, help them believe in themselves.
You create dependency when people need permission. Initiative indicates confidence. Permission-asking indicates dependency. The more check-ins you require, the more dependent people become.
You promote insecurity when you hoard information and resources. Build teams that move forward without you. Clarify goals together. Identify resources together. Establish timelines together. Schedule appropriate check-ins and set competent people free.
You perpetuate dependency when you solve problems for people. Never offer a solution until you ask, “What have you tried?” Explore their solutions before offering your own. Never help a competent person who hasn’t tried something already.
You prolong neediness when people are afraid to offer alternative viewpoints. When was the last time someone disagreed with you?
- When someone asks what you think, ask, “What do you think?”
- When someone asks for advice, ask, “What would you do?”
- When someone is hesitant, ask, “What’s the bravest thing you can do?”
You maintain helplessness when you do all the talking. The person who talks the most has the most power. Give power by providing space for others to talk. Shift their talking from things others should do to things they can do.
How can leaders offer help that doesn’t promote dependency?
Added resources:
7 Rules for Overhelpful Leaders
Have you Fallen into the Destructive Practice of Offering Harmful Help
Helping People Achieve Their Goals
Thanks Dan Taking a long hard look in the mirror!
I hear you, David. The act of helping is wonderful; creating dependency is destructive.
Happy Friday Day! This asks Mgmt. to look at accountability from the other side: not so much seeing what the staff member has or hasn’t done, but seeing what we have or haven’t done to help that staff member be equipped to be accountable.
Thanks Mary. Happy Friday to you, too.
It’s easier to look at others and expect them to change. The challenging management question is what I need to do or not do to maximize the potential of others.
Too much coaching and help is as bad as too little coaching and help. The right amount of coaching gives people just enough information at the right time to help them improve.
A good question to ask yourself–“How much coaching does the person need in this situation?”
“Belief is the beginning of enabling. Ego enjoys the dependency of others. Leaders help people believe in themselves. If people believe in you, help them believe in themselves.” – all beliefs are falsifiable. There is no success without ambition, and ambition requires a certain arrogance of understanding and delivering solutions others cannot. This is leadership of wisdom. If people believed in themselves, they would not need leaders, and it would be a case of solutions by committee. Did that work well in the USSR? Chinese Communist Party? The Democratic Party of the USA? It has not. ‘People’ are generally collectively lacking in the qualities that true individual leaders display. It is social psychology v character of the one. The answers to your three questions is just egalitarian bullshit. If all anyone would receive back for their questions is more questions, no one would ever ask questions! A society where ‘everyone’s a leader’? It would be utter chaos…oh, sort of like the USA now.
Having just completed a third week of Intensive Leadership Training, this post really hit home. Recalling last Sunday when someone was sharing about feeling negative a lot . Too easy to get on my high horse named Ego and launch into what I thought would be ideal remedies . Following your advice I could instead have listened and then quietly asked a thoughtful question. Then listened. Thanks for your ever wise suggestions Dan Rockwell.
Thanks amazing… love your insight re: the high horse. Such a challenge.