Make Yourself Unnecessary

The goal is never to be needed forever.

This is harder than it sounds. When you are good at helping, being needed feels like success. Staying involved feels like care. The pull to keep fixing, coaching, guiding, and solving is strong, especially when you can see clearly what the person in front of you is missing.

But every time you step in before they need you to, you take something away from them. You take the struggle, which is where the learning lives. You take the confidence that comes from solving something themselves. You take the chance for them to discover what they are capable of.

Michael Bungay Stanier, in The Coaching Habit, identifies what he calls the advice monster: the instinct to leap in with solutions before the other person has had the chance to find their own. The best coaches, parents, teachers, and leaders work themselves out of a job, not all at once, not before the person is ready, but always pointed in that direction, building toward the moment when the support isn't needed anymore and then having the discipline to let that moment happen.

Questions worth asking if you help people for a living:

●  Am I building toward their independence, or toward their continued need for me?

●  Is my involvement at this stage helping them grow, or preventing them from having to?

●  What would you need to believe about this person to let go and watch them ride?

Reflective Questions

●  Think of someone you are currently helping. Are you building their capability or substituting for it?

●  When you look back at people who helped you most, were they the ones who solved your problems or the ones who helped you solve them yourself?

●  Where in your leadership or relationships are you holding on past the point where it's serving the other person?

Listen to Episode 9 of Move Toward: Unlocked for the story of a four-year-old on a sidewalk, a young teacher named Kristen, and what happened when someone finally stayed in their chair and let her find the answer herself.