Who Leads the Leader?

This picture is a cartoon archetype. A guru, hermit, wiseman sits before the mouth of a cave high in the mountains. Before him sits a young seeker, a supplicant, whose backpack indicates he has climbed high into the mountains looking for answers to his burning question:

“What is the meaning of life?”

The punchlines almost always imply that seeking wisdom externally is unlikely to find it:

“Life? Life is just one darned thing after another.”

“OK, I’ll teach you the meaning of life, if you teach me how to climb down off a mountain.”

“No, No, I’m not a Life Coach, next mountain over.”

Which brings us to the question, where does a leader go for help? A personal guru or spiritual advisor? A leader in another organization? A staff confidant? Her team? A consultant? A coach? A mentor? A therapist?

It depends.

Help

It depends on the kind of help.

If the leader is looking for specific expertise to help the organization, then a staff person, or an expert consultant,  or university researcher might be the appropriate choice?

If the leader is unsure how to get the organization to do something, improve, innovate, integrate, then a process consultant might be more appropriate?

If the problem is more personal, the leader’s own behaviors are getting in the way of goal attainment, then perhaps a coach might help?

If the problem is developmental and within the context of an organization, an industry, or a discipline then perhaps relying on a mentor relationship might help?

If the problem is rooted in deeper emotions and is showing up in other areas of life, then perhaps a therapist could help?

Leadership is itself a helping profession, so any of these helping professionals might also provide a model of how to help others.

There are many leaders who ask the people in their own organizations for help, the leadership team, staff specialists, a colleague, or a friend. This works for leaders who ask for input regularly and demonstrate that they want the “straight skinny” and not to be flattered. Some will not believe you and flatter you anyway and the first time you get defensive or blow up at bad news you destroy all the candor you earned to that point.

Help is defined by the recipient: you have to ask for it and you have to accept it.

Change

One of my favorite punchlines for this cartoon appears in a callout over the seeker’s head:

“Change? Wait, what? I don’t want to change. I was just curious.”

If you ask for advice, people have an expectation you will act on it. Maybe not all of it and maybe not all the time, but people you ask for help expect that you will do something differently as a result, even people you are paying to help you. Coaches expect you to take action on your goals. Strategy consultants expect you to implement the strategy. Mentors expect you to grow.

The leader who asks everyone on his team for advice and follows none of it, soon earns diminishing followership. Also, be careful of playing favorites, you know, asking everyone, but always doing what Marie suggests.

Dependency

Another punchline for this cartoon:

“So, Grasshopper, you feel self-actualized? You have resolved your imposter syndrome and been recognized for achieving your goals? Are you sure others are not just flattering you? Could you be lying to yourself?”

I believe that most consultants, coaches, therapists and even mentors are genuine and offer help solving a problem to put you in a place to solve this problem yourself in the future, to in effect “work themselves out of a job.” If, however, you find yourself asking for the same kind of help over and over again, stop and ask “Why? Whose interests does this serve?”

I have a friend who hires a new personal trainer every year. Sometimes it works. He ran a marathon in under three-and-a half hours. Then he got into triathlons and raved about his swimming and bike coaches. He skied with a professional instructor for two weeks at Jackson Hole and paid for the instructor to fly and ski with him in Vale. (I tried to convince him to fly me to Vail without success.) Now he doesn’t ski.

To be fair, this man devotes most of his energy to his business, which, obviously, pays him quite well. It is clear what his priority is, but I wonder if he is dependent on advisors in that arena too.

Leadership Wisdom

Leaders rise in unusual, abnormal circumstances, war, change, emergencies. I often say that two of the accountabilities of the leader are:

• to clarify direction (vison) “This way” and
• to attract followers “Follow me.”

It’s OK to ask for help.

Maybe you need help clarifying direction, knowing what to do, when or how. Maybe you need help, getting people “on the same page,”  organizing, mobilizing, staying on track, or achieving results. Maybe, as the instrument of whatever change you seek, you need to work on yourself.

It’s OK to ask for help.

Yes, you must be clear about the kind of help you need and ask the right person. Yes, you still have to act on advice even if it means uncomfortably changing something about yourself. Yes, the answer may not be forthcoming because it is within you. But ask anyway.

Here are some other punchlines for this cartoon:

“To achieve your greatest goals sometimes all you have to do is ask.” Steve Jobs

“We cannot teach people anything. We can only help them discover it for themselves” Galileo

“Life is a bubbling fountain.”

“Wait, WHAT?! I climbed all the way up here and that’s it?! ‘Life is a bubbling fountain?’”

“You m-m-mean. . . Life is not a bubbling fountain???”