Over at The Beautiful Mess, John Cutler writes about the desire to help as both an attunement to what needs attention, as well as a source of pain and overwhelm. He breaks the impulse to help into four distinct impulses connected to personal identity, and links them to personal and relational power. It’s a great read with a lot of nuance, but it preserves the illusion that helping is a useful approach to begin with.
In Leader as Coach, one of the early assignments I give to people is to stop helping. When folks hear this, they balk. What? How could that even be a thing? I share with them Rachel Remen’s piece, “Helping, Fixing, or Serving?” that exquisitely illuminates the power imbalance hidden within the posture of helping.
She writes, “Helping is not a relationship between equals. A helper may see others as weaker than they are, needier than they are, and people often feel this inequality. The danger in helping is that we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity or even wholeness.”
What to do instead? Serve. Trade mastery for mystery and sink into the power of our shared humanity.
