Learning to Ask for Help
How often in your days or weeks do you support and help other people? Many of us believe that it’s our job, whether in our role as a servant-leader in corporate management or as a coach / consultant who is paid to help others.
How often do you ask someone else for help?
This is the far more difficult step. We want to appear as self-sufficient, seemly-confident leaders who have all our shit together. Asking for help can feel weak or that we’re an imposition on others. But what if practicing asking for help is the power move of leadership? This might be especially good to practice if asking for help is an atypical pattern for you.
I’m sharing three tips to remember. Thinking about them may make it easier for you to practice asking for help.
1. It feels good to be helpful
The first tip is to start with empathy. Asking for help can feel icky. To shift your mindset, think about a time when someone asked you for help AND it felt good.
Have you ever been asked by a former coworker to make an introduction to someone else you knew on LinkedIn? If it was serendipitous enough that you *actually* knew them both well and thought that they would get along, you likely made the introduction. My guess is that it felt good to connect two people.
