When Helping is Actually Hurting (Everyone)

 
 

Helping our team is an essential part of being a good leader, but there’s a fine line between supporting growth and fostering dependence. Stepping in to help often comes from the best intentions—wanting to ease challenges, ensure success, or save time. However, in the long term, this pattern can create unintended problems for everyone involved.



When we consistently “help,” our team members may begin to rely on us for solutions instead of developing the confidence and capability to solve problems independently. This happens either because they never learn the job (since we aren’t allowing them to) or because they start to feel we don’t trust them (a message we send when we step in too often). This learned helplessness stunts their growth and limits their ability to contribute fully. Meanwhile, we can become overburdened, taking on more work than necessary and risking burnout. Without space to face challenges, the team as a whole misses opportunities to build resilience, adaptability, and problem-solving skills.



Striking the right balance means shifting our focus from solving problems for the team to empowering them to find their own solutions. Instead of jumping in with answers, we can start by asking guiding questions. For example, when someone brings a challenge to us, we might ask, “What have you tried so far?” or “What do you think would work best in this situation?” These open-ended questions prompt reflection and encourage critical thinking while signaling our trust in their abilities.



All of this is easier said than done. Why? Because of the risk of failure involved. We aren’t imagining this - there is a very real risk of more mistakes in the short term if we commit to this path of empowerment. But the alternative? Stress, burnout, stunted growth and (therefore)… failure. As the saying goes - often attributed to Carl Jung - “We find the thing we fear the most on the path to avoiding it”.



So it’s also important to embrace the idea of short-term struggle for long-term gain. Allowing our team to face difficulties might feel uncomfortable initially—especially if mistakes happen—but those moments are invaluable for growth. Tim Ferriss shares a story of a business owner, Allen Walton, who chose to retain an employee who made a $30,000 mistake rather than firing them. Walton reasoned that the mistake had effectively been a $30,000 investment in the employee’s training. Instead of being a setback, the error became an opportunity for the employee to learn and grow, ultimately contributing more effectively to the business.



Setting clear boundaries can help as well. We can define where our responsibility as leaders ends and theirs begins, making it clear that our role is to support their development, not to carry their workload. By stepping back and creating space, we give our team the opportunity to step up. Over time, our team will develop the confidence and skills to tackle challenges on their own, reducing their dependence on us. This leads to a range of further benefits, including:



  1. It frees us up to do the strategic future-facing stuff we’re being paid to do (and - let’s face it - hiding from by helping out with the detail stuff)

  2. Our team’s performance scales massively, because we are no longer the bottleneck



It is a myth that leading effectively isn’t about always having the answers; it’s about creating an environment where others feel empowered to find their own. By helping less in the short term, we’re enabling our team to grow, perform better, and thrive in the long run.



Next Steps



If we’re looking for practical ways to shift our leadership approach and delegate effectively, we can explore the 1-3-1 Delegation Framework. This simple yet powerful tool helps identify what to keep, what to share, and how to empower our team to take ownership.

Previous
Previous

The Wisdom of the Opposite

Next
Next

Why working smarter, not harder, is easier said than done