Asking for Help: The Leader/Follower Partnership

by Lonnie Pacelli

It was one of the worst meetings in Greg’s project management career.

“We are slipping by a month,” Greg said to his leader Kavita.

“How long have you known about this?” Kavita asked.

“Um, two weeks. I’ve been working hard to pull it back in but wasn’t able to do.”

“And I’m just finding out about this now? Why didn’t you ask for help?”

Greg stammered. “I thought I could handle it on my own.”

“This is really bad, Greg. We have customers relying on us to deliver on time. Sue, you work with Greg to see where we’re at and see if we can pull this thing back in. Hopefully it’s not worse than a month.”

“Will do, Kavita,” Sue said.

“Good, I need to northwind my management and let them know we may have a problem. Get back to me by end of day with your assessment. Clear?”

“Clear,” Greg said as he looked down, avoiding eye contact with Kavita.

“I’m disappointed you didn’t ask for help,” Kavita said as she left the room.

Asking for help. Something that by nature we know how to do. Whether it’s in the form of a baby crying, a kindergartener needing his shoe tied, or a teenager needing a parent’s help with a flat tire, asking for help is something each and every one of us has experience with. Yet in a professional setting, asking for help can be viewed as a sign of weakness; something that could reflect negatively on a person’s ability to deliver.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Asking for help, when done effectively, not only ensures successful delivery but demonstrates a follower’s maturity and wisdom to use any and all levers available to secure delivery. There’s definitely a methodology to asking for help that both the leader and follower need to follow if their partnership is to flourish.

Before we go further, there are a few principles a follower needs to embrace to make this partnership of asking for help work well:

• Your leader collects a success tax on your work – Your ability to successfully deliver reflects positively not only on you but on your leader. Your success contributes to hers. At the same time, your failure reflects on her as well. Your leader has a vested interest in your success.
• You hold a gun to your leader’s head – The reality is that if you don’t deliver on something your leader may come down hard on you; but more often than not, your leader’s leader is going to come down hard on your leader for not delivering. She now has to explain why your project didn’t get delivered to her management.
• Asking for help is not a weakness – Just because you ask for help doesn’t mean you’re in any way less competent; it just means you are leveraging the tools at your disposal to get things done as effectively as possible. Your leader is one of those tools.
• Some things are just beyond your pay grade – Asking for help isn’t always about a leader having greater skill or competence on an issue; sometimes it’s about influence. A leader may be able to get something done more effectively simply because she has the leader title.

Asking for help means both the leader and follower have responsibilities for the partnership to work well. Take heed of the following points to ensure both are doing their part.

For the follower:

• Be specific about the what, who and when – Asking for help is more than just saying “I need help.” The ask needs to be actionable, the specifically-named person who needs to help you needs to be clear, and the when needs to be understood (no “ASAPs”). Also be clear about what happens if you don’t get the help by the date you need it.
• Demonstrate you’ve thought through the ask – Your leader wants to see that you’ve not just mustered up the courage to ask for help, but how you’ve thought through your ask, what you’ve done to try to help yourself, the alternatives you’ve considered, and the implications of those alternatives.
• Be timely in your ask – Give your leader as much lead time as you can in your ask. The longer you procrastinate or try to solve things on your own the less time you give your leader to act. Sure, sometimes your ask could truly have a short deadline because something unexpected crops up, just do your best to avoid creating a crisis because you dragged your feet.
• Be measured – Your leader wants you to be deliberate, focused, and calm in your ask. Set aside the drama and demonstrate that you’re in control of the situation even if things aren’t going well.
• Document it – Put the what, who and when down in an email and send it to your leader. Copy yourself on the email so you can…
• Hold your leader accountable – Be deliberate about following up with your leader on the action. Assume your leader has a hundred things she is working on and may need reminders to get something done. Don’t just make the ask and not follow up.
• Give your leader what she needs to help you – Need your leader to send an email to someone? Craft the email for her for her to tweak and send. The easier you make things on your leader to help you, the greater the likelihood your leader will do what you need.

For the leader:

• Provide a conducive environment – Don’t make your follower feel inadequate, embarrassed, or ashamed when asking for help. Set the tone that asking for help is OK.
• Take time to understand the ask – Ask questions to understand the implications of the ask and ensure can accurately represent the need to whoever else you may need to talk with. You don’t want to be in a situation where you deliver something different from what the follower expected. He may not question you and just try to take things into his own hands.
• Follow up – Simple; if you commit to taking action, do it. Don’t use one standard for taking action with your leader and a different one with your follower. Treat both with the same respect and urgency.
• Think and act like a partner – You have a role in your follower’s success and it’s your job to make sure he has the tools and support he needs to get things done. Your follower depends on your expertise, influence, and pay grade to do things he cannot do on his own. Partner with him to get things done.
• Ask the follower to help you help him – Is your follower expecting you to talk with another manager to free up resources to get something done? Ask him to draft an email that you can then tweak and send. It not only saves you time, but also gives your follower practice in communicating with others higher up the chain.
• Reinforce “how can I help you?” – It’s not enough to create a conducive environment; you need to continually reinforce with your followers that your job is to help them be successful, and that they should leverage you to get things done. Keep saying, “How can I help you?” and provide positive reinforcement for those who take you up on it.
• Don’t do your follower’s job for him – Asking for help isn’t a get out of jail free card for a follower to just throw up his hands and expect you to do his job. If a follower hasn’t thought through alternatives and implications or isn’t specific about the ask, be specific with what you want and ask them to follow through. His job is to make asks clear and thoughtful so you can take action effectively.

Effectively asking for help not only paves the way to getting things done more expediently but also positively impacts the leader-follower relationship. Followers, learn how to effectively ask for help. Leaders, respect the partnership and follow through.

About the author

Lonnie Pacelli is an accomplished author and autism advocate with over 30 years experience in leadership and project management at Accenture, Microsoft, and Consetta Group. See books, articles, keynotes, and self-study seminars at http://www.lonniepacelli.com