Tag: Three Question Leadership

3 Reasons to Ask for Help

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Honestly, I do not know if today’s leadership lesson is a leadership lesson, or just a life lesson, but seeing how you’re both a leader AND alive, let’s dive in anyway.

Ask for help.

There’s something wired inside most of us that makes us dread asking for help. We think it’s an ego shot, or we think it makes us look weak. The reality, however, is asking for help means we are incapable of doing things all by ourselves.

There are a couple of reasons to ask for help:

  1. Asking for help gives someone with an ability and/or gift an opportunity to use their ability/gift. I doubt this comes as a surprise to you, but not everyone excels at the same things. Where some people have no idea how to build something, others find their greatest joy and fulfillment in building. Where some people love technology, others would prefer to throw their computer through the window. Common sense, right? Why not find the gifted people in your realm of influence, and ask them to help.
  2. Asking for help enables you to accomplish more. Let’s say we have 30 cars that need to be moved from one place to another. If it takes 5 minutes to move each car, it will take me 2 1/2 hours to finish the task by myself. If I get 4 people to help me, we each move 6 cars, and we get it done in much less time (sorry, I’ll have to ask my wife for help on the math of that one). The bottom line is we accomplish more when we work together than when we work alone.
  3. Asking for help is not an admission of weakness. There, I said it. But find the balance between asking for help and wanting to be released from all responsibility. If you ask for help just because you don’t want to do the work, then you’re assigning tasks. The second question deals with this: always be willing to do the work that needs to be done. The reality, however, is if you’re afraid to ask for help, you are not going to just assign and walk away. But if all you do is ask for help, you may want to do some evaluation.

The bottom line today: we accomplish more together than we do alone. Ask for help. Your leadership influence will grow as a result.

Do What Needs to Be Done

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As I mentioned last week, I had the opportunity to direct a leadership camp. The general structure of that leadership camp looks like this: a combination of leadership instruction, relationship investing, and real life leadership experience.

The real life leadership experience comes in the form of leading rec for the camp each day. We had 12 kids who stepped up and did an incredible job all week.

The final day ended with a massive color war. Every kid and sponsor at camp had the opportunity to get a packet of color powder and participate in a massive color battle. It was quite amusing to watch from a distance.

Our leadership principle today, however, comes not from the color war, but from afterwards. We had run some relays prior to the color war, and our supplies were still out. After the commotion had almost completely died down, I saw one of the boys from the leadership camp, covered in a myriad of color powder, walking to the relay stations and picking up supplies.

I never specifically told him we needed to pick up supplies. He did not come to ask if there was anything that needed to be done. He was able to assess the situation and decide what he should do next.

As a result of his picking up supplies, a few other kids saw it and started doing the same. He created a movement simply with his actions.

As a leader, sometimes we need to be reminded that even though we may look like a package of skittles exploded on us, there’s still work to be done.

Take a moment today. Look around and ask yourself what needs to be done, then do it. If possible, invite someone to join you for the task. But never be afraid to step up to take care of that which needs to be done.

Pour Into People

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I’m at camp this week working a group of student leaders. We will be teaching leadership principles, giving them opportunities to lead, and teaching them to evaluate as they go.

So, today’s thought is a short one: find people to pour into. They are all around you. They vary in age. But they are all around you. Find ways to invest in people and to help them grow as a leader.

One way to do this is by spending time and getting to know people around you. Ask questions about what they are experiencing. Find out what they’re struggling with and what they are good at. Take time to slow down and connect this week.

For me, nothing in leadership is quite as invigorating as investing in leaders around me. I hope you find the same to be true.

Landmarks and Memories

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Sometimes I wonder if everyone operates the same way I do. Today, let’s find out.

When I drive by certain landmarks and have a memory come to mind, it is generally something I was listening to at the time. As a result, I can drive by a windmill and remember the song that was playing, or under a bridge and remember a conversation I was having. Or, on a tractor, drive by a fence post and remember the point of the story I was at in an audiobook. Crazy, right?

But one place in particular is different. There is one spot between where I live and where I grew up that every time I drive by it, I feel like a 7th grader again.

Honestly, I do not know if the memory comes from that long ago or not, but it’s a spot where over time I have assigned a specific feeling: the feeling of awe at finally having arrived–being an athlete. It was undoubtedly one of my first early bus rides, but the emotion remains. Every time I drive by that spot, I feel optimistic, energetic, and old.

I may not know you well, but I’m going to guess you have something like that. It may be a spot where you fell in love. Maybe it is a note you keep in a safe space. It might be bigger, like your old car from high school, or your very first instrument. Or, maybe, it comes with a person. You think about the first person to encourage you to push for something more, or the first person to point something out to you.

Whatever it may be, I want you to think about this: you are not the same person you were in that moment, in that memory.

I am not a 7th grader anymore, though my wife may accuse me of acting like one from time to time. More than that, I had no clue I could ever become the person I am today.

Again, I would venture to say the same is true of you.

We change over time. We mature. We grow. We make mistakes. We get things right, and we grow some more.

Take a moment today and celebrate that you are not who you were in that memory. You are something more, something better, something different. And, if you’re not better than you were then, take a step today to correct that.

The Tension of the 3rd Question

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Last week I went to camp. One of my roles at camp was to teach leadership to a group of 12 students. What I did not anticipate, however, was the leadership challenge I was going to face in the process.

The kids were great. They were willing to step up and serve, they had humble spirits that were willing to learn, and they poured back into their own groups to make a difference.

The challenge was on my end. I had two roles while at camp: leadership and sound booth. There were certain times in the schedule where the two overlapped, and so I was faced with the tension of the 3rd question: both things need to happen, but I cannot accomplish both at the same time.

(Side note: If you do not know the 3 Questions, click here to read about them. The 3rd question asks “Who can I get to help?”)

The tension of the 3rd question boils down to this: asking other people to help actually helps us accomplish more. Revolutionary, right? Maybe not. In fact, this concept is completely logical. It makes perfect sense that the more people we ask to do something, the more we can get done.

The tension, then, comes when we as leaders would rather do something on our own for any number of reasons. Maybe there’s a certain level of glory in being in charge of something, or we enjoy accomplishing the task. But at the end of the day, if we want to lead, we have to answer the 3rd question.

So, today, what are you holding onto that you can let go? What is on your plate that overwhelms you, but you are afraid to ask for help? What can you ask someone to help with in order to create some forward momentum? Answer the third question this week and see what happens.

 

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