Why your help might actually be hurting

Last night, I had one of those eye-opening moments where I realized I was making the exact mistake I coach leaders to avoid. It was frustrating, humbling, and honestly, a little funny.

But it also made me think—how often do we, as leaders, believe we're helping when we’re actually doing the opposite? If you’ve ever found yourself stepping in, fixing, or solving for your team, this video is for you.

P.S. If you consider yourself a servant leader, stick around until the end of the video for a key takeaway just for you.

• Read the video transcript

  I had a challenging night last night, and the funniest part is that the thing I was challenged on was the very thing that I challenged a client on that afternoon. And so I can empathize with how hard this is.

  The thing that I'm talking about is choosing to coach rather than fix or problem solve for our employees, or in my case, for our kids.

  My youngest daughter, Harper, was working on a research project and it was taking hours. In fact, the last two nights at home, she spent over three hours each night working on it, which for a fourth grader is too much. I think she's fallen a little bit behind. And as I was helping her with it, I was so tempted, especially as it got later into the night, to just help provide sentences for her, right? That would be the fastest, easiest approach.

  And yet when we do that, when we solve for the employee, they don't actually get to develop the skill themselves. Sure it's faster and easier early on, but in the long run, we are going to continue to be needed.

  Sso I had to step back and ask thoughtful questions, let her share her ideas, and then also catch myself from fixing it too much, right? When a fourth grader shares their sentence, every part of me wants to help refine it to make it even better. But that's not the point in this situation. A, it needs to sound like a fourth grader. But B, for you managers, when your employee produces something in an area where they're developing the skill, I want you to think about is it approximately 80% good enough, 80% right? If so, that might just be enough.

  And so if you are in a leadership position and you really struggle to pull out of the fixing and the problem solving, I want to encourage you to be so much more aware of this, to step back and ask questions and give space for the employees to problem solve and develop the skills on their own.

  I will just add one more thing. Typically, I see this tendency in leaders who desire to be servant leaders. They desire to help their teams immensely, so it comes out of a good heart. But in the end, when we take too much responsibility for our team, we end up taking responsibility from them. It's like going to the gym and lifting weights, hoping they'll get stronger, and it just doesn't work that way.

  So step back, ask the questions, let them run with it, and be okay with 80% good enough.