“Asking for help earns you respect and prevents a crash landing! “
Have you noticed how asking for help is considered a weakness? The fear that admitting one doesn’t have the answers is being seen as a failure. An action that could even lead to you being fired!
Whilst understandable in some circumstances, this belief can hold a person and a business back
In my experience, asking for help when you don’t know what you are doing can literally save your life. Let me use a story of my own to illustrate.
Some years back, when I was still a student pilot, flying out of Grand Central Airport in Midrand, I was practising some manoeuvres over the farmlands west of the airfield. It was a glorious day, quite early in the morning, and I was revelling in the feeling of being alone in the plane, building the mastery of flight.
Suddenly I found myself in an emergency. The flaps had failed in the fully down position, and no amount of flipping the switch would make them move. Far from the airfield and out of touch with the airschool or my instructor, I wasn’t sure what to do.
As per training, I looked around for a suitable field to ‘ditch into’ and then realised I was not sure this was the right decision. I was faced with two choices – to face the embarrassment of being known as the female pilot who wrecked a plane with an unnecessary emergency landing or being labelled a ‘dumb’ female pilot asking for help. I chose the latter and put out a call on the general radio frequency that went something like this: “Calling experienced pilots on this frequency, I am a student pilot on a solo flight, and my flaps have stuck full on. I am unsure if I should put down here or try to get back to the airfield. Please advise.” There was quite a pause, and then two male voices came on, urging me to rather try to get back to the airfield as the safest option.
And that is what I did. I returned to Grand Central to be met by a line-up of fire engines and an ambulance. I am happy to say that I made a perfect, safe landing to the visible relief of my instructor, who was standing by.
That year I was awarded the Pilot of the Year trophy.
Proving that in the right circumstances, asking for help can get you the right answers and earn you the respect of those around you. To this day I’m an avid believer in asking for help when I don’t know what I am doing, and seeking outside views even when I think I do!
Our challenge as leaders is to create the sense of safety that encourages people to feel able to ask for help.
