I recently asked my wife what she thought I did well in leadership development. She said I worked well with high achievers, helping them navigate situations and think through decisions. Then she started naming people.
What surprised me was how easily she saw a pattern I had never really considered. To me, those conversations were just something I naturally did. Someone had something on their mind, and we talked it through.
She was describing what she had watched me do, while I had been looking at it differently. I hadn’t really thought about it as a particular strength. I was asking about how I helped other people think, and my wife was doing that very thing for me.
It made me wonder: Who helps the people everyone else turns to? When you carry responsibility, people look to you for direction. Your team needs a decision, a colleague wants your opinion, or someone brings you a problem they’ve already spent three days trying to solve.
You get used to being the person with an answer. After a while, you may start to feel like you should have one before you even enter the conversation.
So you keep working through a difficult situation in your head. You replay conversations, make assumptions about someone’s intentions or put off a decision because you’re still trying to figure out the right approach.
Leaders do need discretion. Employees shouldn’t have to carry every concern their supervisor has about the future. Some decisions involve information that needs to remain confidential. Choosing carefully who you talk to is part of the responsibility.
But there needs to be someone you can say, “I don’t know what to do here,” to without feeling like you’ve lost their confidence in you. A good conversation gives you room to work through your thinking before you have to defend a decision.
The person you’re talking to might ask why you expect a conversation to go badly. They might notice you’ve spent twenty minutes explaining someone else’s behavior and very little time looking at your own. They may even recognize a strength you’ve been overlooking because it comes so naturally to you.
My wife’s observation reminded me that we can miss things about ourselves even when we’re paying attention. We’re so used to our own habits that we sometimes assume everybody operates the same way.
It’s one thing to hear someone point out a strength you didn’t recognize. It’s another to have someone tell you where you might be getting something wrong.
That’s where trust matters. I’m more willing to examine my thinking when I know someone has taken the time to understand what I’m carrying. And being understood doesn’t mean being agreed with. Sometimes the most helpful person in your life is the one who can say, “I understand why you feel that way. I still think you need to handle this differently.”
Think about who you call when a decision gets difficult. Does that person understand the responsibilities involved? Can they challenge you without trying to take control? Do they need to impress you, or can they speak freely?
Then ask yourself a harder question: Are you willing to tell them the part of the story that makes you look less reasonable? Even a wise person can only help with the version we give them.
If we leave out what we said, how long we avoided the issue or the possibility that we misunderstood someone, we limit the help we can receive. We might leave feeling supported while still being stuck in the same thinking.
Getting good advice requires something from us, too. We have to be willing to listen before explaining away what someone is telling us. And we still have to take responsibility for what happens next. Someone can help us see a decision more clearly, but we’re the ones who have to make it.
I’m grateful my wife answered based on what she had seen. She helped me recognize something I’d overlooked in my own life. It reminded me that just because I help other people think through things doesn’t mean I don’t need someone to do the same for me.
Most of us have something we’re trying to figure out. Maybe the next step isn’t spending more time thinking about it alone, but having an honest conversation with someone we trust.
