Leadership Types
The Helper

Being "The Helper" is one of many different leadership types. Does this describe the type of leader that you are?

Have you ever been driving down the road at a high rate of speed and decided to get something out of the back seat?

Did you take your eyes off the road and maybe even let go of the steering wheel to turn around and reach back for whatever it was you needed?

If you did, I don't want to ride with you anywhere! However, many leaders think they can lead like this!

Let me explain.

If you are the type of leader that gets too involved in helping with the daily activities that your staff should be doing, you may be considered a Helper!

The problem with the leader that is a Helper, they think that they are a really good manager, because people like them.

Well, why aren't they?

Haven't we always heard that we should lead by example? What's good for the goose is good for the gander! If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me!

We've heard all of these. Yes, it is good to lead by example! Yes, you can step in and help now and then.

But if you take your eyes off the road for very long you will sooner or later end up in the road ditch. Or worse yet, dead from a head on collision!

Same thing as a leader! If you take your eyes off the big picture for too long and only focus on the things that are right in front of you, you will sooner or later fail yourself and/or your staff.

Your staff appreciates your immediate help on the tasks they are doing today. But are they going to appreciate you having to lay someone off tomorrow because your department isn't meeting their sales goals, due to your failure in focusing on the daily indicators.

These indicators could have alerted you to what changes were needed to increase sales.

Instead you were focused on helping them with their duties.

Understand that I am not speaking about helping from time to time. That is a good thing. I am speaking more about continually being involved in the day to day activities that your staff should be doing on their own. Activities like inputting computer data or calling customers that is a routine duty of one of your staff members.

Think of the Captain of the ship. If he is down in the engine room most of the time helping out, where do you think the ship is going? I hope they have enough life boats to get everyone off safely.

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