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Being a Giver
I think a lot of people assume that helping is just a time-sink. And so the more time that you spend helping others, the less time you have to get your own work done. And I think there’s a sense in which that’s true, but I’ve also been really pleasantly surprised by a lot of research that I’ve done which actually shows that people who take their time out to help other people actually tend to build stronger relationships and also a wider set of connections. Over time, whether it’s making an introduction, sharing knowledge, or providing mentoring, those deep relationships often allow you to get help and support very directly. They also expose you to new ideas and different perspectives that facilitate creativity and innovation and sometimes enable you to directly solve a problem.
And there’s a sense in which what goes around does tend to come around. I think a lot of people stereotype generous and helpful people as pushovers, as weak, as not tough and driven enough to be successful. And I think that is a myth that we really need to break down.
There’s this wonderful executive, Sherry Ann Persad, who really stands out as one of these people. She went through a strengths assessment a couple of years ago, and she learned that her greatest strengths were kindness and compassion. And she immediately said to the people who were doing the assessment, “Don’t tell anyone. I don’t want to be known as a kind, compassionate person. I want to be known as tough, achievement-oriented, you know, results-driven.” And I think that over time what she realized was actually many of her role models were these givers, these people who were extremely helpful and generous, and that this was not actually something she necessarily had to hide, but it was actually one of the things that had made her most effective in her job because she was really respected and appreciated as somebody who helped and supported those around her.
And I think that what we need leaders to do is basically to teach people to separate helpfulness, generosity, and giving from necessarily being timid, from being available to the point that you drop everything at all times for all people who come to you with requests, and from being so trusting and empathetic that you actually get taken advantage of a lot. I think there’s a big difference between actually looking for ways to benefit other people and becoming somebody who’s completely exploited or exhausted by helping other people.
Dealing with Takers
So if you’re an empathetic or kind-hearted person, how do you protect yourself? I think one of the first things to recognize is I do find this range of styles that people bring to their everyday interactions.
So on one end of the spectrum, we have the givers who do tend to enjoy helping others. On the other end of the spectrum, we have what I call the takers, the people who are constantly trying to get as much as possible from others and not contribute nearly as much in return. And it turns out to be somewhat risky to be constantly helping and supporting takers.
And one of the things that I’ve been trying to teach in my courses for years, and have been studying as well, is can you learn to recognize the signs of a taker and then scale back your helping and giving and ask that person either to reciprocate by helping you or even to pay that help forward so that the person is not getting away with self-serving action. And I think that’s one really critical step: to actually screen the motives of the people around you that you’re really supporting and helping out.
How do you spot a taker? I think there are a couple of signals that you can look for. One is there’s a lot of research showing that takers tend to use “I” and “me” as opposed to “us” and “we” when talking about accomplishments and successes. You know, claiming as much credit as they can. A second pattern that I really love is an idea that basically gets called “kissing up, kicking down.”
Takers tend to be really good at managing up and trying to flatter and make good impressions on powerful and influential people, but it’s pretty tough to keep up that masquerade in every interaction. And if you’re a taker, you tend to let your guard down a little bit more when you’re interacting with peers and subordinates. And so I would actually not trust a boss in judging who’s a giver or a taker, but actually go to the people who work laterally or below that person.
Rising to the Top
One of the most surprising findings from my research is that if you are a giver and you spend a lot of your time trying to help others, that’s a risk factor for sinking to the bottom. It’s also a potential catalyst for rising to the top. So generous people are overrepresented at both the bottom and the top in many organizations. And the question is “What makes the difference?” A lot of it, it turns out, has to do with how you navigate the balance between benefiting others and advancing your own interests.
So there’s a group of very generous people that I would consider selfless or purely altruistic who constantly put other people ahead of themselves and end up sacrificing their own interests along the way. And those are the givers, who, a lot of evidence shows, are at risk for burning out and being taken advantage of. The givers who try to put others first frequently, but also keep their own interest in the rear-view mirror, I use the term “other-ish” to describe them.
They’re not purely selfless; they’re also not purely selfish. They’re trying to think about “How can I add value to other people in ways that are either low-cost to me, so high-win for others, but not necessarily a loss for me? Or even high-benefit to others and benefiting me as well, a win-win?” And I think that that’s a more sustainable strategy for trying to help others than just sacrificing yourself.