A participant in a recent peer-to-peer coaching session quoted this phrase, which you might recognise from recent popular culture. When I looked into it, I was surprised to learn that it dates back to medieval times: a character in Walter Map’s work De Nugis Curialium “left no good deed unpunished, no bad one unrewarded”. Hearing it made me ask myself if giving advice is a good deed and if so, how the giver is punished.

In entrepreneurship and leadership, giving advice is a habit many of us fall into.

I used to give a lot of advice. Was I punished for my kindness? If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know that I have recently taken the view that giving advice isn’t always helpful. However, for the purposes of this blog, let us consider it a good deed.

Was I punished? Yes. I felt drained at times by my compulsion to help people solve their problems, and at other times I felt like a doormat. The receivers of my wisdom were sometimes also punished because overhelping someone can prevent him or her from solving their own problems. My helpfulness may have held back their development. After all, an overly helpful leader leaves no room for employees to take more responsibility.

Over the past few years, having experienced the downside, I put aside the benefits of going the extra mile in helping others. I have devoted myself to stepping back and giving my clients the space to find their own answers, so much so that I try not to share the benefits of my experience and life’s lessons for fear of impinging on their own ability to find the solution.

Tension

If it is true that no good deed goes unpunished, how then is it that my business is going so well? I have concluded that it is because I worked so hard to help others throughout my career AND, conversely, because I have stepped back from helping so as to allow my clients to solve more of their own issues.

I’ve learned a lot from the spell of reflection sparked by the saying. My first lesson is how easy it is to get caught up in a new approach and discard the benefits of what worked in the past. The approach of letting go of responsibility so consumed me that I forgot the benefits of helping others on their journey.

My second lesson is that it is not a case of one approach versus another. There is a tension between helping and giving space. As a coach, I have to be aware of the situation and understand where the other person is at in their leadership evolution in order to get best results.

As a coach, I need to be continuously aware of this tension in any given interaction or communication. There are times when the person needs my input and trying to coach them frustrates both of us. Equally, there are times when my help is resented and the other person is totally ready to make their own mistakes and learn for themselves. By listening to understand their challenge and helping them tease out their own answer, we achieve the best results. This is the ultimate win-win and it is why our Peer-to-Peer Leadership coaching forums are going from strength to strength.

I’ve written before [ER1] about the melding of approaches and how this can be the key to success rather than turning one’s back fully on a well-worn approach to embrace a new path. We are, after all, the sum of everything we’ve experienced and everything we’ve learned.

What strategies do you use when developing others around you? In what way is your well-worn approach punishing you and others?