If you want to have a big impact
A key lesson in my foundational leadership training was that leaders ask for help. We were doing an experiential exercise at a retreat where we each had to navigate our way out of a situation. Like most experiential exercises, we had constraints and limited resources.
The learning emerged in looking at how long each of us tried to do it alone before asking for help. The help was available from the beginning, though not explicitly named. Some asked quickly, and others held out until the very end, determined to go at it alone.
Asking for help is paramount to leadership. You're able to create a great impact when you secure support and involve others. An often-cited, vaguely attributed African proverb speaks to this same idea: "If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together."
This leadership pillar — you have to ask for help — like many others, is often harder for women.
Asking for help runs counter to women’s social conditioning
You receive many implicit and explicit messages that impact the likelihood you’ll ask for help beginning at an early age. Note that they are biased toward Western influences.
Asking is vulnerable.
We're taught to refrain from asking for help in order to protect ourselves, because our dominant systems won’t protect us.
Systems are built without our needs or wants considered.
We doubt the value of what we want or need to ask for, because our wants and needs are often overlooked.
When we receive, expectations are placed upon us, often implicitly.
We never know what we will owe in exchange for help, so we'd rather not ask than be coerced into something.
If we do everything "right" ourselves, we'll be sought or rescued.
This is the Disney princess storyline: a woman toiling without expecting help, until destiny finds her. In reality, we are working hard and no one has come.
We are under-represented in traditional leadership.
There's an assumption that others know more than we do about what we need.
We hold more than is fair and are therefore overwhelmed.
Identifying what we need or even asking itself is another thing we have to do.
Society values women by what we selflessly give.
We're not taught to value our own needs.
We're buried in mothering and caretaking.
It's hard to have the time or mental space to focus on ourselves.
Social conditioning ignites fear and shame
Brené Brown’s research boils women’s hesitancy to ask for help down to shame and fear of not being enough. For men, it’s a shame and fear of being weak. No one escapes the Western world's value of rugged individualism. We are all scared of not measuring up to society’s expectations of us, whatever our gender. It negatively impacts everyone. The barriers for women are greater.
Why work toward removing the barrier of asking?
Colluding with the idea that you should do it alone robs you of the relationships and community you want. Reciprocity between individuals in a collective is the bedrock of community. Mutual give and take in large numbers allows the ebb and flow of needs and capacity to emerge naturally. It puts no onus on a single person. The likelihood that the collective can care for the individuals increases.
We are in the midst of a loneliness epidemic. Loneliness is a gap between the level of connectedness you want and what you have. Most of us want to feel more connected, and learning how to ask for help is a great starting point. Each risk taken by asking for help is an opportunity to build greater connections. This can be the foundation of community in your personal and professional life.
Asking is a means of activism
Normalizing asking for help can shift the paradigm on what's acceptable. In essence, building this skill can be an act of activism. Asking for help is a refusal to uphold outdated narratives of doing things alone. And it breaks the isolation that keeps women stuck.
Call for reflection:
What is one thing you’re trying to do alone that you can invite others into by asking for help?
Shine On,
Alicia
(Image by Alexander Suhorucov via Pexels)