Five reasons the best leaders ask for help

Strong leaders know asking for help is strategic, not weak. Dan Byrne outlines the fives reasons why asking for help can lead to success

The best leaders ask for help.

Whether it’s through experience or pure respect for the rules from the start, good leaders know that asking for help when necessary is an essential part of tough decision-making environments like the C-suite and boardrooms. That’s why these kinds of leaders leave their pride at the door and recognise how smart collaboration makes more of an impact than trying to accomplish everything, mistake-free, while working alone.

Yet, there’s a stubborn cultural myth that gets in the way: ask for help, and you must lack competence. It extends from the biggest boardrooms to the smallest corner shops across the world.

The reality is that nothing could be further from the truth. Seeking help isn’t a sign of weakness – it’s a sign that the person is truly embracing strategy.

Here are five reasons why asking for help works.

1. It broadens your perspective

No matter how good you are, or how long your experience, everyone develops blind spots. If you let them grow, you’re inviting dangers like increased risk, which could threaten the entire company.

Leaders asking for help introduce a new perspective. They give themselves and their colleagues new perspectives that can illuminate the best path forward after weeks, months, or even years of back-and-forth.

2. It builds psychological safety and team resilience

Asking for help builds psychological safety.

If a leader faces a crisis and does not ask for help, the crisis deepens. The leader appears out of their depth, their colleagues lose faith, communication breaks down, and strategic risk dramatically increases.

If a leader does ask for help, the crisis is shared. More brains contribute to a solution, colleagues feel involved; some even feel emboldened because their insights were key to solving the problem, communication increases, and risk goes down.

Not every situation is as clear-cut as the above, but the key message is that sharing problems fosters teamwork that creates psychological safety – something that can’t be achieved if a leader tries to resolve a crisis alone.

3. It builds your leadership playbooks

Leaders who ask for help under pressure often emerge stronger.

Collaboration in crisis gives you tough tests in speed, accuracy and confidence in response. It’s a rollercoaster, but it’s character-building, and it’s something you can take with you once a crisis has passed and others look to you for advice.

4. It reveals hidden talent

Seeking help can lead to responses that allow you to develop new skills you haven’t used before, increasing your awareness and confidence in future crises.

Similarly, as others try to lend a hand in a crisis, you may spot skills in them that they hadn’t realised. It’s a cyclical benefit.

5. It fuels innovation

Asking for help, especially in panic situations, encourages collaboration with others. This is the very environment that can produce some of your company’s most innovative solutions.

Urgent situations can prompt minds to think and plan in ways that calmness won’t allow. However, such collaboration relies on the leader holding their hands up and saying, “I can’t do this alone. I want help with X, Y, Z.”

Be a part of the cultural shift

The larger fact at play is that very little of the above matters if you’re still part of a culture that penalises someone seeking help.

We’ve all seen it, we’ve all felt it: that sense of disapproval just because a leader says they can’t do something alone, or doesn’t know something off-hand that could be useful. Culture re-enforces this constantly, sidelining help-seekers and championing people who only show strength, even if their ill-informed actions pose a risk.

For that reason, it’s vital that you call out such behaviour, not just to change cultures, but to ensure the organisation doesn’t get exposed to unnecessary dangers.

Seeking help is not, and should never be, a reason to negatively impact someone’s job performance. True red flags lie in ignoring key metrics, refusing advice, or failing to act when opportunity or risk presents itself.

So next time you hit a wall, don’t hesitate. Ask.

Dan Byrne is a journalist with the Corporate Governance Institute