Why Asking For Help Makes You a Better Manager

If you’ve ever felt pressure to know and do everything in the office, this is for you! Better yet, let’s rephrase this and ask instead, when have you felt empowered to ask for help? 

In our time working with leaders from a variety of backgrounds, we’ve found that so many suffer silently through heavy workloads, people management, and other leadership challenges out of a desire to be self-sufficient. 

In reality, no job title or amount of responsibility should keep you from asking for support when you need it, especially when it can make your working hours more productive. 

Brené Brown offers top advice on not just why asking for help is a must for leadership, but also how asking for help– and therefore being vulnerable– makes you become a better leader as a result.

For leadership gurus like Brené Brown, asking for help is simply a must for leaders if they want to excel in their roles. Specifically, she makes the distinction between armored and daring leadership- the former being driven by perfectionism and fear, and the latter being driven by courage and vulnerability. In Brené’s own words, “the greatest barrier to daring leadership is not fear; the greatest barrier is armor, or how we self-protect when we’re in fear.”

While it may appear as a self-protective measure, armored leadership tends to have an adverse effect on managers. In leaders, it can often manifest as feeling an obligation to  know rather than being open to learning, and tapping out of difficult conversations as opposed to skilling up and leaning in. 

Among Brené’s particularly sage pieces of wisdom is this: “We're not here to be knowers. We're here to be learners. And that's the bottom line, to be better people.”

While concise, this quote encapsulates so much of what daring leadership entails. Possessing and speaking out with vulnerability not only can lighten an overwhelming workload, but it sets an incredibly powerful precedent for the rest of your team: that asking for help is a power move! 

Without having a leader model this behavior, employees may struggle without saying anything in order to preserve an image of knowledgeability, productivity, and efficiency. Without a culture that empowers vulnerability and transparency, employees may shrink under unrealistic workplace expectations. 

Ultimately, without all of this, teams may function interdependently and lose a sense of community and collaboration over time. 

We know that feeling comfortable enough to ask for help as a leader in the workplace all starts with a culture that empowers individuals to do so. At Leadology, we’ve worked tirelessly to develop and implement programs that teach the emotional intelligence and communication skills needed to build company cultures like this from the ground up. If you’re feeling like your organization could improve on this front, know that the work starts with you as a leader.