Many of us leaders like to think that we are superheroes. It’s our job to solve the problems for our teams. We are their leaders, and that means we need to be strong. We need to have the answers to problems, provide direction and, in essence, be their north star. But what happens when we need help? Are we willing to ask for help when we need it?
As many of you know, IT By Design hosts an annual conference called Build IT LIVE. The event itself is like my baby. For the past six years, we have nurtured it. It is a labor of love. Every session and tool is meant to provide value to our partners. It’s not like a regular conference where vendors come in and talk about their products; no – there must be an entire environmental scan to discover the topics relevant today. Then, we need to find speakers for these topics, get templates to solve the problems, and put all this content into a workbook…needless to say, it’s a lot of work.
So, the two months prior to Build IT LIVE become extremely stressful. Putting on an event this large requires a lot of effort. For the past year, I have been leading the entire revenue team. That meant that I was in charge of sales, marketing, account management and Build IT. Understanding my limitations and my focus area became an important part of being able to ask for help. I like to be the person who gets things done. It’s part of who I am. So, when I get to a point in time where I feel overwhelmed, it’s not simple or easy for me to ask for help. But I learned that I have to be able and willing to ask for it when I need it.
We have wonderful leaders at IT By Design, and many of them have been with us for many years. We recently held our quarterly business review, and I walked into that meeting with a very clear objective. I needed to ask for help. There was no way that I would be able to give Build IT the focus that it needed and still meet my commitments for the revenue team. Revenue on its own is a huge beast; for a company our size, that’s a lot of team members. And being able to ask for help, even going outside of our organization to get it, was key.
Part of being a good leader is understanding what our own limitations are. Whether it’s time, treasure, or talent, we can’t always solve every problem. In this instance, I was struggling with time —there just wasn’t enough of it in the day. So I came up with a plan, and I walked into our leadership meeting with a humble request. Most of the leaders in this team do not have sales or marketing backgrounds, so I had to be very specific with my request. Would somebody be able to help manage the revenue team while I focused on Build IT over the next three months? While there is a sales leader and a new marketing leader joining, the division still requires integration. I needed help with the onboardings and making sure the leaders were meeting their objectives.
It was a very specific request that was time bound.
Luckily, I was able to get the help. The reason I bring this up is that many of us are afraid to ask for help. We think it makes us look weak or that we’re incapable of doing our job. That is not the case. Being a highly accountable leader means that you also know and understand your limitations. When there are times of the year when there is going to be a significant workload, being able to go to other leaders and ask for help doesn’t make you weak but instead makes you highly accountable.
It took me a few years to learn to ask for help. I always wanted to be the person who got everything done. In fact, it was a matter of pride for me. I was a Rockstar. But now I listen to my body and my mind; those cortisol levels were through the roof. You will be surprised how willing and understanding your fellow leaders are when you ask for help. We are often our harshest critics. We have to be able to take a moment, understand our limitations, come up with a viable solution, and, most importantly, be willing to ask for help.
