Coaching Real Leaders / Season 4, Episode 6

How Do I Ask for Help?

Listen | 58:39

An aspiring leader must learn how to be less of a player and more of a coach.

December 12, 2022

She’s carved out a unique role for herself, which she loves, but worries that the pace of work is unsustainable. As she thinks about the next step in her career, she realizes that it will require her to lean on the help of others — something she’s not used to doing. Host Muriel Wilkins coaches her through how to get the support she needs to move forward in her career.

Further reading:

MURIEL WILKINS: I’m Muriel Wilkins, and this is Coaching Real Leaders, part of the HBR Presents Network. I’m a longtime executive coach who works with highly successful leaders who’ve hit a bump in the road. My job is to help them get over that bump by clarifying their goals and figuring out a way to reach them so that, hopefully, they can lead with a little more ease. I typically work with clients over the course of several months, but on this show, we have a one-time coaching meeting focusing on a specific leadership challenge they’re facing. Today’s guest is someone we’ll call Sabine to protect her confidentiality. She has, in her words, reached a high level in her career doing something she loves – through a combination of determination and a bit of luck.

SABINE: I always wanted to be creative, but I was never encouraged by my family. I was told I’d be a poor hippie. I didn’t have great educational experiences when I was younger. Basically, I was told if I wanted to go to school, I had to pay my way and the easiest way for me to do that was through sports. So, I basically got on an athletic scholarship. When I started teaching, I realized finally how I learned. I became addicted to curiosity. And once I had this feeling, I felt like I had the best gift in the world. No matter where I’m at in life, this will always help me break through to whatever’s next. And I think it’s the best gift you can give somebody is to help them find their voice.

MURIEL WILKINS: Sabine has parlayed her work ethic and love of teaching into her current role.

SABINE: I would say the passion for me is that it’s really about creating things from scratch and helping other people learn how to learn and accelerate their learning. I have to be both externally and internally efficient and effective. Internally, the people that I serve are essentially the partners, and my job is to distill their thoughts that are sometimes never been actually externalized, sometimes it’s just tips and tricks they’ve gained along the way, and extracting their top 1% of knowledge and making it compelling and engaging. And then the other audience that I serve are our clients who tend to be extremely high performing people that have gotten to where they are because they’re smart. And my job is to almost help them be smarter.

MURIEL WILKINS: She’s been powering through her career and really figured out something she loves, but she’s now facing some life circumstances that make her feel like she should start working smarter but not harder. Let’s start the conversation as I ask Sabine about what she’s looking to get out of our coaching conversation.

SABINE: For one, I think there needs to be a word for when you are really great at giving advice to other people, but not yourself. And I just haven’t heard that word yet, but that’s why I’m here. Essentially, I’m trying to get ahead of a problem. I’m trying to look into the future and get a long view. And the problem statement that I’m coming in with today is, how do I approach my future career without having to do it all on my own? There’s been two key things that have catalyzed this problem for me. So, I had a pretty life-changing surgery, and so I’m on medical leave, and that puts you in a space where you’re in deep reflection. And physically, I cannot do what I’ve done before. So, the old approach to how I sought work and did my work, I don’t think will work anymore moving forward. And the second assumption that I have baked in was a seed that I planted in my head maybe a year ago and I’ve just ignored, but it’s really coming to fruition in this reflection. And it’s during the pandemic when there was these mass migrations of talent, I was starting to see, and I wasn’t looking, but I was just seeing my peers basically go in swaths to other companies. Six people would go to company A, 10 people would go to company B.

And I was thinking to myself, what conversations are they having that I’m not aware of? Is there some sort of secret language to finding your next job that I’m clearly not understanding? Or it’s an approach that’s just really foreign to me that I’ve never done before.

MURIEL WILKINS: And so, why is this relevant now? Why is this question important to you right now?

SABINE: My health has certainly given me that shock to the system where I’m not willing, nor am I able to keep the pace that I was able to do before. And I’m worried that if I don’t have a long-term strategy for finding that next job or figuring out how to approach the rest of my career, I’m going to be stuck in an environment that might not be sustainable for me just in terms of what it’s asking of me physically. And I don’t think the old way of just seeing if a job pops up is going to work because the landscape that I’m in is not really defined for my role, and I can’t really go on LinkedIn and just search for this role.

MURIEL WILKINS: And it sounds like a big change for you has been around your desired and potentially required pace.

SABINE: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: All right, just so I understand. So thinking about a future career, not quite sure what that career looks like, presumably, or at least we’ll talk a little bit about that. And then how do you approach it? Because it’s not one of those things that just pops up in your email. You’re perceiving it as something where you might have to take a different approach to finding your next role, and that’s not something that you’ve had to do in the past.

SABINE: Correct, yeah. I don’t know how to.

MURIEL WILKINS: Oh, you don’t know how to. And what is it that you don’t know how to do?

SABINE: I don’t know how to help myself in my career. I just put my head down and work hard and care about what I care about deeply. But in terms of leveraging my past success and having that work for me, I don’t know how to do that.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. All right. So, where you do know how to help yourself is by doing the work?

SABINE: Yeah, it’s the only way I know.

MURIEL WILKINS: It’s the only way, but it’s worked. It has been a way.

SABINE: It’s very tiring. It has worked, but I think it’s also unsustainable past a certain point. There’s a high burnout rate.

MURIEL WILKINS: Gotcha. At what point is that burnout rate for you?

SABINE: I was there six months ago, but now I’m forced to stop, so I’m past that point now.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, I think part of what we might want to start with is painting the picture of where it is that you’re going to, even though we don’t yet know whether it exists in reality. It sounds like you have a working definition of what’s not working for you. I’d love for you to explore what your operating, working definition is going to be about what you think will work for you. And so when I say that, what does the future career look like for you? What does the next role look like for you? What comes up?

SABINE: I would say it’s about 30% of what I currently have and 60% of what I don’t yet have. The thing I mentioned earlier is that the pace for me is not sustainable. There’s a relentlessness to it that I don’t want to keep up with. The things that I currently have that I’d like to continue in my future role is I’d like to work on products that are really considered leading industry products. I’d like to be in a global org, not necessarily narrowed in on one geo. The things that I don’t have that I would like, one is right now I’m basically like a lone operator, and I’d like to be in a team of other peers so that I’m not in a thought vacuum. I want to continue being a really senior IC, so leading within a team, not leading a team. I guess the main change that I’m really looking for is I want to go a little bit less from being that athlete at work to being more the expert at work. So, a little less doing, a little bit more guiding just to put some breaks on the work I’ve been taking on.

MURIEL WILKINS: Got it. And so the athlete to expert is for the purpose of being able to slow down some?

SABINE: I think so. And it’s also just I’ve maximized those skills. I don’t want to keep doing the same thing over and over and again. For my own personal growth, I see that as a learning opportunity. And I think sometimes people can be better as coaches than athletes. In my sports career, I always felt that was the case with me.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. So, moving from more of an athlete player to a coach?

SABINE: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: Got it. What I’m not hearing you say directly, even though it came up in terms of what was important to you and what is a catalyst for this change is, I’m curious, what is the pace that you’re looking for in the future?

SABINE: I think waves of projects with thoughts in between rather than never-ending sprints, and not even sprints, never ending marathons. I think part of this comes from my background. One of the ways that designers really excel is when there’s a little bit of distance, so there’s a little bit of room to observe, or there’s a little bit of an angle for breathing space. And when I don’t have that, it’s easy to succumb to just the work and not be as creative as I want to in my thought process, and that’s part of what’s driving this need for just breaks and cycles.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, in your experience, the way that you had, and I’m sure there’s other components to what your dream role would be next, but have you seen that dream role or that future role in existence in some form or fashion anywhere?

SABINE: I haven’t.

MURIEL WILKINS: You haven’t?

SABINE: That’s another challenge that I haven’t explicitly said, but you might get … I don’t know. It’s kind of if you see a person, maybe you’re like, “They look like what I’m interested in, but they don’t really have all the qualifications.” So no, I haven’t seen anything like exactly. Not that I’m looking for exactly what I want, but the core of what I’m looking for I have not seen existing in the world.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. And let’s say tomorrow, this role, as you described, did come up, was offered to you, what trade-offs would you be willing to make to acquire that role? Meaning, is there anything that you’d be willing to give up or to make less important for you in order to have a role where you now are on a team of peers, you’re more of a coach rather than the athlete, there’s spaciousness between projects?

SABINE: I think the thing I’d be willing to give up is my desire to be an IC versus leading other people. I’ve led other people in the past, but I’ve found that I’m an empath and I often take on their emotions. And rather than being that direct line of responsibility, I like being a coach where it’s almost like an aunt or an uncle rather than a parent. I find that a little liberating and creative.

MURIEL WILKINS: All right. So, I’m asking the question because I think, sometimes, we say, oh, this is what we want, and we don’t recognize that we might have to let go of something in order to pick up something else. Instead, we’re like, “Oh, no, I’m just adding to the bag.” Right?

SABINE: Yeah, it’s like buying a house.

MURIEL WILKINS: Exactly. And then it’s like, “Ooh, I can’t find a house that size, or I can’t afford a house that size.” So, not to say you can’t have it, it’s just being ready for there may be potential trade-offs that you have to make when the time comes. How about as tactical things as willingness to move, compensation? Are there trade-offs you’d be willing to make around those very lower level decisions, but yet very important decisions we have to make about our career?

SABINE: I’d be willing to move. Compensation is something I’ve worked hard for and I would like to keep it where it’s at or improve.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay, great. Just for you to know as you start thinking about what are all the different parameters, because those, as much as I said, oh, describe what the current role looks like, I also think you need to … It’s kind of like you describe the house, and then what does the fence look like? What are the boundaries that you want to put around it? What are the parameters so that when you see it, you know that’s what you want. And more importantly in your case, you can start working towards what it is that you want. What’s your approach from getting closer to that role? I want to come back to part of the catalyst here, which is around a requirement of change of pace for you. Clearly we’re talking about your career as it relates to your feeling of burnout in terms of how you described it and it being unsustainable. To what extent is your career what you feel led to your physical burnout or your overall sense of burnout, and is it the sole factor that led to that?

SABINE: I would say I’ve prioritized my career willingly over the past 10 or 15 years because frankly it brings me joy. It’s not a career for me. What I’ve done or liked as a person has always naturally I’ve been able to do as a job. In terms of the burnout that I’ve experienced recently, there was a few things. I didn’t take a break, total newbie, move between the two jobs. I transferred into an industry that was completely different. I transferred into a subject matter area that I was not as familiar with. So, the learning curve was just extremely steep. And in hindsight, I think I put myself in an environment that wasn’t sustainable, even though I was highly able and capable to fulfill the role. And so I actually think it’s the environment that I am finding unsustainable.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. And at what point did you get the sense that this environment might not be the one that is most sustainable for you?

SABINE: I would say about a month into the job. But my fiber or my fabric or DNA of who I am, always I pursue and there’s a determination to me. And it’s not to prove anybody wrong, but it’s just a stamina that I have and I will complete a job until it’s done. But I think I would’ve continued or can continue at this job had it not been for this just weird change of events with my health. That’s a little scary.

MURIEL WILKINS: And so, what I want to be mindful of is we can course correct for the environment. You can find another environment. That doesn’t guarantee that the thing that drove your pace, that eventually led to staying in the environment that you’ve been in, and then eventually led to the burnout that you’ve experienced, that doesn’t guarantee that that goes away.

SABINE: My habit.

MURIEL WILKINS: The habit, exactly. So, what we want to try not to do is put a bandaid on the real source of the issue, which is what your approach has been. And your approach is grounded in your superpower. You were like this relentless pursuit of what you need to make it. I mean, you even said you were told if you’re going to go to college, you’re going to have to do X. You’re going to have to get your way through it. And so, that’s what you did. You were a student athlete, which is really hard to do, and you worked through it. And now here again, you work through your career until you couldn’t anymore.

SABINE: I feel like I’m retiring from a professional career and I’m going to transition into a new one or something, even though-

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. In the words of somebody who I hugely admire, Serena Williams, you’re evolving.

SABINE: That’s right, that’s right.

MURIEL WILKINS: We’re not retiring, we’re evolving. Okay?

SABINE: Yeah. There you go.

MURIEL WILKINS: Let’s pause here. Sabine’s situation is particular in that she’s been facing a health crisis, but it’s also pretty universal in that many people, high achievers, workaholics, whatever you want to call them, power through to reach success in their careers. But many of those people also reach their breaking point where they don’t know how they can continue working at that pace and they want a change. While it’s easy to think that all you need is a change of environment or job to slow down, it’s also important to look at your own self to see what changes you need to make so that you don’t end up in the same burnout situation again. As much as Sabine was ready to explore how others could help her make a career shift, it was important that she start with herself and what she’d need to do to work at a more sustainable pace, no matter where she lands. Let’s pick the conversation back up as she begins to unpack what assumptions about work she holds and how she might need to change them.

SABINE: My old way of working, which was just find one job, stay in it until I can’t do it anymore, go into the next job and just hop from lily pad to lily pad without foresight, that approach is not going to work. It’s short sighted And it’s creating burnout. So, my assumption as well is that this new approach is going to require more than just me, I guess, maybe a network or community of people to help me get to where I want to go.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. And may I suggest that you don’t give up one approach or the other and more approach it from a place of I’m expanding my approaches. So-

SABINE: So, not retiring, evolving. And I’m not exploding, I’m expanding my possibility.

MURIEL WILKINS: You’re expanding. Exactly, exactly. And what you’re expanding from is, okay, yes, you had one approach and guess what? It did lead to some successes. I mean, you have carved out a pretty amazing career for yourself. And we’ll call that, as you put it, the jumping from lily pad to lily pad and reacting to what’s ahead of you. That can work, and what that would mean is if today some opportunity popped up, I don’t want you to be like, “No, no, no, no, no, that that’s my old approach. I’m not looking at it.” No, still be opportunistic and take a look, and let’s figure out if there are other approaches that expands the potential for opportunities and expands the way that you approach career-seeking and career-planning that then provides you with more range in what the possibilities are for you. There’s a bit of, I understand and want to acknowledge the space that you’re in today, which is your health has been impacted in a way that’s significant and material for you. And it’s very easy when we get to those places to then look at everything that’s led up to that as quote-unquote, “bad” and how could I have, and I took the wrong path. And what I want to offer you or suggest is that you give yourself some grace and some credit that what got you here, yes, may have resulted in your health pattern, but did not necessarily … isn’t the full story. Where you are here from a health standpoint is not your complete story. You also have this very amazing, other parts of your life. So, for lack of a better sophisticated word, let’s not poo-poo all over it.

SABINE: Done.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, we’re going to hold that and then we’re going to move on to the rest. Okay?

SABINE: I have a question for you on that.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah?

SABINE: As you’re saying this, I’m feeling almost like a little bit of guilt that I let myself get to this state, that I was so burnt out that I had this extreme situation. And I’m not saying that it was necessarily the causation of it, but there are parts of me that thinks it was correlatory. If I had been more in tune with my needs, maybe I would’ve caught things earlier. And I’m glad you said to give myself some space because I didn’t realize it until you had said that, but I think I’m being a little hard on myself where I’m not maybe forgiving myself for letting myself get to that point. And so, I think I need to just maybe, as you said, give a little bit of pause and just give that space so that when I do move forward and I am kind of looking at this evolutionary approach with more possibilities, that’s not even a focus in the back of my head. It’s like, I’m good, I’ve put that to bed, let’s move forward.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah. I mean, what would that look like for you to even give yourself that space?

SABINE: Honestly, just talking about it with you now and just acknowledging it feels pretty good.

MURIEL WILKINS: I mean, Brené Brown, who I bow down to, talks about guilt and what the root of guilt is, which is shame. And so, if we just take that framework, what’s the shame in you having gotten to this point in your health?

SABINE: I’m relatively young and it was a shock. It felt a little bit self-inflicted.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, I think there are a lot of assumptions there. And I’m taking a pause because I’m thinking about when I asked you to describe what has propelled you in your career. You named three things, determination, fortitude, and luck. And when I hear you talk about where you are right now, it seems like you are relying on the determination and fortitude and almost saying, man, if I had more … Somehow determination and fortitude would’ve stopped this from happening and you’re leaving the luck part completely out of the picture. And luck works both ways, right? Luck is when we say, oh, that’s not in my control. And there is a lot that’s not in our control, but luck can work in our favor and against our … Or it’s not even favor, it’s against what we would hope happened. And in this case, the part that’s not in our control fully, as you said, it’s part of the equation, but the part that’s not in our control is what happened. And that’s the space to realize you could do all the quote-unquote, “right things” and still be where you are.

SABINE: Well, I mean, admittedly, I’ve done a lot of wrong things too, but that’s the way that I learn, which is actually the best way to learn. I think in a way almost if I had … This comes back to the point where I’m better at helping other people better than myself. I understand that cerebrally, I understand that unfortunately life is probably 50% pain and it’s probably 50% joy. It felt different to me this time because it happened to me versus when I’ve seen it happen to loved ones or something. And I think the support I provide them is probably different than the support I would provide myself.

MURIEL WILKINS: What’s the support that you provide them?

SABINE: I think I can observe their needs and I can look at them and fill in the gaps and I could just meet them where they’re at. With myself, unless it’s right in front of my eyes, like dead smack staring at me, I don’t realize it. I’m just like, “Oh, I need something. Okay, I’ll deal with it now.” It’s delayed and it’s a lot more blunt.

MURIEL WILKINS: This is what we call … I mean, what you’re describing, even from a leadership standpoint, we’ve talked so much about having the leader who is compassionate. So, compassion means being able to sit with another’s suffering with an open heart. And in order to build capacity for compassion for others, you really need to be able to build capacity for self-compassion. And what I’m hearing you say is I’m able to sit with somebody else’s needs. I’m able to do that with my people at work. I’m able to do that with loved ones. And yet, I haven’t quite built the capacity yet to sit with my own needs and sit with my own discomfort, not to sound dramatic, but in this case it is literal, my own suffering.

SABINE: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay?

SABINE: Cuts deep.

MURIEL WILKINS: That’s deep?

SABINE: As they say, that cuts deep.

MURIEL WILKINS: That cuts deep, that cuts deep. Yes. In what way?

SABINE: It’s not unusual for I think people to put their energy into places where they want to give back. And I would say that’s part of my career, I’m trying to give people maybe what I didn’t have. And so I think it’s, even if I haven’t developed that capacity yet, or maybe I haven’t strengthened that capacity yet, I think it’s there. I think part of the way that I try to do that is one, give to others, but also just let that experience of giving to others, through osmosis, develop my own capacity better.

MURIEL WILKINS: And so, that’s a really interesting approach, Sabine. And a lot of people approach it that way, if I give to others, then I am giving to myself. Or if I help others be joyful, then it will bring me joy, and it actually doesn’t work that way.

SABINE: Many people are irresponsible about it too I will add.

MURIEL WILKINS: Right. The way it works is … It’s so funny where I get sometimes my learning moments for myself, but I will quote some other people here. I can’t remember which one, but one of my favorite Peloton instructors says something like, “You’ve got to be able to pour into the other’s cup while you pour into your own at the same time.” It’s not, I’m going to pour into the other person’s cup and therefore my cup will be full. No, you pour into both. So, I think part of this for you is understanding that what you’re giving out, you also need to be using the boomerang effect and giving to yourself as well. Now the good news is clearly you have the ability to be helpful because you said, I don’t know how to help myself, but you have the ability to help because you’re doing it for everybody else. And now it’s like, how do you then help yourself in the same way that you help others, which is understanding their needs, filtering down and synthesizing what those needs actually mean and then putting them into practice and executing on them. And so, part of that is starting with what you’ve defined. If we bring it back to the job search, well, then what kind of job do I actually need that will help me? What does it mean to be sustainable for me? What does that look like for me? Always bringing it back to yourself. And when I say that, bringing it back to yourself, how comfortable are you with that?

SABINE: I think it’s doable. I think out of the things that you asked me for, the strongest indicator of what I need right now is just a team of peers. I’ve been in a vacuum and I need other people to learn from in what I specifically do.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. You need other people to learn from in what you specifically do. All right. And it sounds also like what you need is other people to just help you do the work.

SABINE: Yeah. I know I need to scale myself and it’s been on the roadmap for a long time and it’s inevitable. I could use some help as well.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. What have you done to move towards more of a sustainable situation within your current role?

SABINE: Does taking medical leave count? [inaudible 00:29:44] I bought time.

MURIEL WILKINS: You know what? I’m going to give you a check plus on that one.

SABINE: Thank you. Thank you. Apparently you need medical write-off for that, it’s not self-nominated. Other than that, nothing.

MURIEL WILKINS: Who else knows that you are feeling the way you do in terms of feeling like it’s unsustainable and you’re in the burnout phase?

SABINE: I haven’t told anyone, put it that way. The very perceptive people can tell, but I haven’t admitted it either.

MURIEL WILKINS: You haven’t admitted it. And what got in the way of that?

SABINE: I think it can put you in a position of risk if the environment isn’t accommodating to it. And I was still in observation mode and I didn’t intuitively feel like I was in that space where I could without jeopardizing my options. I didn’t want to put that card down.

MURIEL WILKINS: And that’s very real. So, assessing the risks, not feeling fully safe to be able to do that. What would you need to feel, quote-unquote, “safe enough” to share where you are?

SABINE: I find, with these hard conversations, it often helps to fly to a 20,000 foot elevation. So, maybe you’re feeling very intense about something because it’s quite present and it’s visceral for me. So, I think what I need is to have a conversation about, look, this is what I’m heading for in my long-term future, or this is how it might include you. Given that, here’s what I need on a day-to-day, kind of like a 5K foot view. And I think I haven’t been able to have those long-term career conversations because like I said, I’ve just been nose to the grindstone and there hasn’t been time work-wise, nor have I made time for myself for that.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. So, what would make you be able to have those conversations in the future?

SABINE: One of the great things about this break is that I’ve had a ton of time to reflect in my few short weeks because you’re lying in a bed and so, your brain just goes in overdrive. First, I think I needed clarity on what that future is. And then after that I think it’s just reaching out to some select people and just asking for their trust.

MURIEL WILKINS: And how realistic do you think that is for you?

SABINE: Before I went on break, I would say it was probably about a 50-50% risk. When I go back, I’d like to reassess the situation. A lot of things could have changed that I’m not aware of. I could have that conversation with people outside of my current environment. I have great relationships with tons of my old peers and colleagues, but I never considered any of them like a mentor or a sponsor, they’re just friends.

MURIEL WILKINS: But what would you be looking for in having those conversations? What’s the desired outcome?

SABINE: A sounding board, much like we’re doing now, someone to just objectively say, I’m hearing you say this, is this what you’re looking for? And I think out of those conversations, what I’d be looking to have is almost from a friend more than a colleague point of view is what … The question would be like, is what I want to achieve, do you think doable in this environment realistically?

MURIEL WILKINS: And so, that I think is the question that you need to be direct with and ask whether it’s internally in your organization or externally elsewhere, as you start looking for that role. The difference between being reactive, that has been your approach up till now, the lily pad jumping, right? You’ve been reactive. The opportunity has come up, and the opportunity has basically said, hey, does this look good to you? And you’ve answered yes or no. The different approach now that we’re moving to, which is more proactive is you’re saying, hey, here’s what I want, does it look good to you? And they can say yes or no.

SABINE: It feels a lot more empowering than what I’ve been doing before.

MURIEL WILKINS: Right. With that comes some risks. The risk is that they say no, but guess what? You already identified what the risks were in your other approach. So there’s risks either way. So what I’m sensing in our conversation is a hesitation to fully put out there what it is that you want and need out of concern of how it might be responded to.

SABINE: Partially. I don’t think I was clear on what I wanted or I needed until this break.

MURIEL WILKINS: Sabine came to the conversation looking for better guidance on how to plan out her career. But what she’s finding is getting in her way is her reluctance to state what she wants and needs out of her professional role. And she’s so used to doing things on her own, she also hasn’t always asked for help in managing her career. But this forced break from work has really given her an opportunity to sort through her priorities. So, now we can go ahead and start looking at ways she can have conversations both internally and externally about what it is she wants. There’s three ways this can go. You can either wait and hope that somebody one day just miraculously pops up and says, hey, remember that role that you said you wanted when you were laying in bed and you conjured it up and you’re like, here it is? So, that would be your old way. Option number two is you go have one of these more sound-boarding conversation, mentoring conversations or even more mentoring where it’s like, hey, this is how I’m feeling, it hasn’t been sustainable for me, it’s been really hard. And then you cross your fingers and hope that the person on the other side will say, wow, well, you know then? What if the role was like this? And then you react to it and say, oh my gosh, yes. How did you know? That’s exactly what I want. So, you can go to option three, which is, I’ve thought about it, I know what the pros and cons are. I’m now crafting, designing, creating, which by the way, you’re really good at, what I want that next role to be. Let me go and talk to select people about it and test whether it’s even possible. And if it’s not possible here, then I have a choice to make. And so, I laid out some options. How do they sound to you?

SABINE: The first two, I would say sound status quo in terms of possible, I’ve done that already, maybe not the second one as much as the first one. The whole proactive versus reactive mindset’s really resonating me, and so I’m compelled to think that really what I want is that third approach, which is me stating what I want and putting out there and seeing how people react rather than me accommodating to other people’s needs as much. I think it’s the only way I’ll feel like there’s more balance, the kind of balance that I need.

MURIEL WILKINS: And so, what do you feel you need to be able to do that, to chase option number three, if that’s what you’re choosing right now?

SABINE: I think I can craft my needs in a pretty simple and hopefully intelligent way. I struggle with knowing, I guess who to speak to or how to approach them. Like I said, I’ve never had formal mentors or sponsors, but I leave every job usually, and this is not to toot my own horn, but I leave jobs with great reputation, so it’s not like I’m burning bridges. I guess I don’t know how to leverage a community or a network.

MURIEL WILKINS: What does that even mean, leverage a community and a network?

SABINE: I don’t know, I don’t know. Network’s a weird word and so is community, but this is the part where it’s like, I just don’t want to do it on my own. I’d like to have some help from others.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. That’s what I wanted. I wanted to fully understand what does that even mean? You don’t want to do it by yourself.

SABINE: I’d like to learn from other people that are a few steps ahead of me, even if it’s somewhat adjacent or tangential to what I’m doing.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay, so you want to learn from them. What else do you want from them?

SABINE: Advice in terms of is what I’m laying out tenable? Are there potentially industries that I’m not considering? Are there potentially people I should speak to? I mean, the cherry on top would be like, hey, I have a job for you that meets exactly what you’re looking for.

MURIEL WILKINS: I mean, wouldn’t it be great if you’re talking to people who also potentially have line of sight into opportunities?

SABINE: I would love that.

MURIEL WILKINS: I mean, Sabine, don’t bury the lead here, you want a job.

SABINE: I want a great job.

MURIEL WILKINS: You want a great job. So, there’s your criteria. Look at your list of people, who has something to offer in terms of advice? Who has something to offer in terms of experience? Who has something to offer in terms of line of sight into opportunities and potentially influence and decision-making position towards those opportunities? Who has the intersection of all three? Because they’re the holy grail. What you have at the very least is a network, a community, as you’ve said. You have people, you’re just not leveraging them.

SABINE: I know.

MURIEL WILKINS: “I know,” she says sheepishly. So, it’s how do you leverage them? I think the first place is you drill it down, you focus. You don’t just spread yourself thin. You say, okay, just the same way we articulated for you, what’s the career you’re looking for, where is it that you need help? Who do you need help from? So, you need help in terms of advice, support, opportunities. But let’s even start with the first is, who’s your board of advisors? Who are your people that can be helpful to you? So, right now you’ve articulated what you need. All right, who falls in that sweet spot? That’s who your outreach list is.

SABINE: It’s interesting because I think one of the things that was holding me back is that I didn’t feel like I had a clear ask and I didn’t want to come to people without a clear ask. And that’s because I’ve been on the other side of the equation quite often, I mean almost always actually, where people are asking me for help or mentorship, and I don’t think all requests for help are created equal. And I wanted to be, I guess strategic and smart about how I wanted to ask for help. And now that I’ve clarified those, or that you’ve clarified those three things for me, that gives me a much more solid foundation where I think I feel a lot more comfortable doing that. It was a barrier before.

MURIEL WILKINS: And so, you now have your clarity of ask. You now have, we’ll hypothetically say, you have your list of people or you will in the next few weeks. What happens after that?

SABINE: I think it’s kind of putting pen to paper, just making a very simple brief, two paragraphs at most, maybe a few bullets identifying this is what I want, these are the pillars of what I’m looking for, and then making a short list of people. And then I think just putting myself out there and seeing where it goes.

With the people that I trust, I don’t feel like there’s the risk if I say something wrong or it’s not perfect messaging. There’s that space where I could just get close enough and they’ll help me get the rest of the way.

MURIEL WILKINS: I think what you need to be careful of is potentially missing out on the opportunity to make your specific ask out of concern for how it’s going to be handled. So, what does that mean to you when I say that?

SABINE: Good catch, but I don’t know how to do that either.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. So, how you do that is, yes, you might come in with framing it a little bit higher level in terms of framing it as seeking advice, but have your ask in your back pocket because if you see an opportunity to present it, then you present it.

SABINE: What would that sound like? Or how would you phrase that?

MURIEL WILKINS: I think it depends on how the person responds. In an ideal way, they will say, well, so what is it that you want? And then they’ve asked you. If you’re halfway there and you’re not sure, you can maybe say, I’m thinking about potentially different options. I’m not dead set on this, but here’s something I’ve been thinking about. So, you caveat it a little bit. But what I don’t want you to do is go to, I’m not sharing at all, and go in with that attitude and then not even notice when there is an actual opening for you to share.

SABINE: It almost makes me think that I just need to scenario plan a little bit. And as you mentioned, there’s these three things that I’m looking for. And then maybe there’s different levels of, let’s just say viscosity in terms of how much I can share with this person. And then almost make a little bit of a map, like here’s a two liner that I could share with that person just so I have a little bit of a roadmap of how I’d like the conversation to go, of course adapting to how I view it going.

MURIEL WILKINS: I think that’s a great idea. And if you have some people that you do trust, like a friend, a colleague that’s a trusted friend, you might want to role-play it out with them before you actually go out in the real streets and do this and have these meetings. Have them play the trusted advisor, mentor, sponsor where you can come in and be very direct with what it is that you want. Have them play the in between person and then have them play the person that’s like, let me keep this high level. And practice it out loud.

SABINE: That’s a great idea.

MURIEL WILKINS: All right. Let me just play this out with you since we were talking about scenario planning. What’s the worst that could happen when you have these conversations?

SABINE: The worst-case situation would be that I don’t get any helpful information, which is not that bad, it’s just a waste of time. Not really. But the worst case situation is that the conversation goes nowhere, and I don’t think anybody would think any less of me in reality.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay.

SABINE: Noted, it’s not that bad.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, I mean, it lands you back to where you already are.

SABINE: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, worst case is the status quo.

SABINE: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, I think as you do your outreach, as you go into these conversations, it’s also thinking about what do you have to gain from having this conversation and what do you have to lose? And then making a choice. So, how has it worked for you in the past when people have come to you?

SABINE: I usually think of it in terms of a three-point diagram. One is, can I actually help them with their ask? Do I have the skills where I actually feel like I could provide value? And then I think the second one is, do they have a clear sense of their ask? And do they actually have a need that I feel is a real need, or is it just a, I want a favor, dialing in a favor and I might not need it that much. Need actually matters to me a lot. And then the third one is like, do I want to help them? Do I like them? So, I think about those three things.

MURIEL WILKINS: Okay. So, if you were to take those three things, how would you frame your outreach to others to make sure that those three variables are at least being considered?

SABINE: Have a clear understanding of their skill or expertise or opportunity or whatever it is that they excel at. Be very clear and explicit about that upfront that this is what I’m trying to tap into, establish some rapport. And then the third one is just be very, very clear and simple about what it is I’m asking them for and why I think they can help me.

MURIEL WILKINS: And I would encourage you to be as transparent as you want them to be with you.

SABINE: What we’re talking about is an approach essentially for, let’s say, some near term action that I’d like to take to explore future possibilities and roles. And this is, I mean, we’re really kind of talking about different approaches to communication and a plan for it, but is this a ongoing practice that most people have? Are most people continually doing outreach searching for what’s next?

MURIEL WILKINS: So, I’m going to turn the question back on you. Is this a practice that you continuously want to have?

SABINE: I’ve never done it before, so I don’t know. It seems a little exhausting to do this all the time. I mean, there’s joy and feeling comfortable and rooted in a place. So no, I don’t think I want it all the time, but I imagine that it’s somewhat cyclical and it’s like a muscle you have to engage every few years or quarters, depending on how you’re doing it.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, I think the operating statement that you made at the end there was depending on what you’re doing. So, I could hear and very naively give you a generic yes, you should be doing this all the time, but that would be generic. You wouldn’t need a coach to do that because you could just go read here are the top 10 tips on what to do to advance your career and follow all 10. What we’re trying to do now is really laser it down to what are the two or three most pertinent, salient actions that you can take, and the way you figure that out is what actions are the most aligned to the goal that I have so that I can be information to get there. So, as I often say, “I don’t know if you should keep doing this all the time “ – Why don’t we try this time? Let’s see if it’s even something that you want to invest your time and energy in as one approach, and then take it from there. The question that you didn’t ask, but I’m going to ask for you, is asking for help from others a critical part of one’s leadership journey and career in order for them to grow and in order for them, in your case, to lead in a sustainable way?

SABINE: It’s a very good question. I think you can certainly grow internally. That’s always been my way of working. If you’re not unaccustomed to help being an option, you help yourself. And within that, there’s huge growth opportunities. I mean, I’m self-taught in almost everything. I think there’s potentially, in my experience, a little bit of a cap on terms of exponentially how far I can go, just doing it on my own. And I’m at that fulcrum point where it’s like I want the compounding interests of my work and my growth, my learning, not necessarily my professional success, but my development and my growth as a human. And life is richer with others or with help. And you don’t need it, but I would like it.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, Sabine, the beauty of it is you’ve got the individual thing down pat, and now it’s saying, uh-oh, I’m not just going to be the singles tennis player, I’m going to be a doubles tennis player, but I’ve got to go look for a partner. So, I think what you have an amazing opportunity for right now is before you are even placed in an official formal team sport where you’re part of a team and then it’s like, oh, shoot, now I have the team and I’ve got to leverage and I’ve got to be able to do this, being able to practice the skills of asking for support and making requests and asking for help and being okay not doing it on your own. You have an opportunity to do that right now out of necessity. I mean, I would even ask, not to totally get into your personal stuff, but even in the season that you’re in right now where you’re dealing with health challenges, to what extent have you used this opportunity to exercise that muscle of making sure that you are being supported by others?

SABINE: Yeah, it’s been unnatural to me, but it’s not been as bad as I thought. It’s been a good stepping stone. And I was surprised that so many people stepped in. So, it’s there, it’s just unnatural.

MURIEL WILKINS: Unnatural.

SABINE: For now. For now, for now.

MURIEL WILKINS: Right, unnatural. And so even, why don’t we say it’s something that you’re not used to anymore.

SABINE: Much better, yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: Because there was probably a time in your life where you did rely a lot on people. I mean, you were a baby once.

SABINE: Yes, I was a baby once.

MURIEL WILKINS: I don’t think you came out of the womb with like, dammit, I’m doing everything on my own and I’m sheer determination.

SABINE: Oh my God. Thank God, no.

MURIEL WILKINS: So, you have practice in seeking support and getting support, right?

SABINE: Yeah.

MURIEL WILKINS: And so, it’s getting back into the practice of it. That’s all it is. It’s there.

SABINE: It’s so funny how your personal ways of being can just permeate your professional life, and they’re not that distinct often. I mean, it’s like how can you not dissect or how … They’re so intertwined and it’s always very humbling to see when those personal habits are impacting other parts of your professional life.

MURIEL WILKINS: I mean, you’re a whole being, right? It’s not like you leave one part and can come back. It’s hard to compartmentalize in that way as you’re experiencing now. So, I encourage you to look at, even before I’m in a situation where professionally I might have to leverage others in an actual role, what are your opportunities to actually exercise that muscle now, as uncomfortable as it might be? Because all you’re feeling right now is the discomfort, and that’s okay. It’s okay to be uncomfortable. It’s okay, as uncomfortable as it might be, so that I build the simple muscle of recognizing when I need help or support and being able to ask for it or get it. That’s the skill.

SABINE: Yeah, understood.

MURIEL WILKINS: Understood. And?

SABINE: And I’m thinking to myself, I’ve got a lot of work to do.

MURIEL WILKINS: Don’t we all?

SABINE: Yeah, in a good way. In a good way. We’re all good.

MURIEL WILKINS: We’re all good. We’re all good. Well, listen, thank you so, so much.

SABINE: Thank you. This has been a gift.

MURIEL WILKINS: The week after my coaching meeting with Sabine, I received an email from her. It read, “Muriel, last week’s coaching session was illuminating. I gained clarity on my goals, blockers, and tactics. More importantly, I’ve internalized a razor-thin line between my professional and personal self and how critical it is for me to manage both. As I take my leadership to the next level, I’ll be thinking of the following shifts we lasered in on together, from reactively jumping into roles to proactively finding future opportunities, from leading compassionately to also being compassionate with myself, from desiring others’ help to permitting myself to be helped, from relentless pursuit to growing and leading sustainably. You have given me so much. Merci. Signed, Sabine.” As a coach, it’s not me who gives to my clients, they give themselves what they need by showing up, finding their answers, and doing the work. All I simply do is facilitate that path for them. That’s it for this episode of Coaching Real Leaders, and that’s a wrap on this season as well. We’re taking a break over the winter and I’ll be back with more episodes this spring. In the meantime, stay in touch by joining me and many others at my Coaching Real Leaders community, where I host live discussions on leadership issues and the coaching sessions you hear on this show. You can join at coachingrealleaderscommunity.com. You can also find me and my newsletter on LinkedIn at Muriel Wilkins. Thanks to my producer, Mary Dooe, sound editor, Nick Crnko, music composer, Brian Campbell, my assistant, Emily Sofa, and the entire team at HBR. Much gratitude to the leaders who join me in these coaching conversations and to you, our listeners who share in their journeys. If you are dealing with a leadership challenge, I’d love to hear from you and possibly have you on the show next season. Apply at coachingrealleaders.com. Of course, if you love the show and learn from it, pay it forward, share it with your friends, subscribe and leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. From HBR Presents, I’m Muriel Wilkins. Until next time, be well.