As leaders, we are on a regular basis called upon to give advice to young professionals about life and career, to the people whom we lead about what they should be doing in a given situation, etc. So, an important aspect of being a good leader is to know when and how to give advice to the people who seek it from us.
This post is inspired by a post I read by David Cain on his blog Raptitude titled, “Advice Gets Good When It Gets Specific“, which I thought had great advice on how to give advice. You can read the full post here.
Here are some lessons I have learnt. Please feel free to add to this list based on your experience and learning.
When possible Don’t give advice, instead probe with questions / options:
As far as possible (which is not as much as I would like to, but I am getting there), I generally avoid giving advice. I do so because, in most cases, the person asking for the advice already knows what they need to do. They are looking for validation and not advice. Sometimes you end up validating their expectations and sometimes you don’t. Either ways, they will do what they think they should do and are only looking for someone whom they can place blame if things go wrong.
If needed, I can help them recognise the different options that they have as their path towards their goal and probe them about what they think is the right thing to do. Also, probing them with questions and helping them realise that they have the answers already leads them to have the option to own up to their decisions and actions.
Where relevant, share perspectives:
When I do need to give advice, I always share my perspective. What I mean is that I qualify everything I say with something like, “For me” or “In my experience” or “It depends” or “What I have learnt”, etc. This is simply because what was true for us might not necessarily be true for others. Everyone of our situation is different, our attitudes are different, our abilities and skills are different, so it is quite possible that what worked for me may not necessarily work for you.
So, I don’t want to be too presumptuous and assume that I know all about the person asking for advice and also that my advice or experience is what they exactly need. I know that at times this frustrates the people who ask for the advice when I don’t give them a “Do this” or “Don’t do this” response, but in the long run, they do appreciate me for helping them by sharing my perspectives instead of recommendations.
When absolutely needed, give recommendations:
When someone is asking for advice based on my lived experience and I know that my experience will definitely be useful for them, I give them recommendations and explain why I think these are good recommendations. While giving these recommendations, I also share the conditions under which these would be good recommendations. This way, I share my experience without having to dish out “Do’s” and “Don’ts”.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, all I can say is that there is a difference between being asked for advice and being asked for expertise. When someone is asking for expertise to be shared, we can be as prescriptive as we want to be. This is not only the expectation but is also the right thing to do. Whereas, when someone asks for advice, being prescriptive is probably the wrong thing to do and that is when the three suggestions I have made in this blog could come in handy.
Here are some other perspectives on “Advice”:
Here is Bruce Lambert talking about his top 3 rules to giving advice.
Here is best selling author, Michael Bungay Stanier‘s thoughts about advice monster:
