Don’t lead with guilt. People will do the work and resent you the whole time.

LEADERSHIP

WHAT THIS MEANS

Guilt works once and is expensive afterwards. Telling somebody how disappointed you are, or how much you have given up, will get the task done, and it converts a willing person into a cornered one who now associates helping you with feeling bad. The work arrives and the goodwill quietly leaves.

Ask directly instead, and make the no genuinely available. Say what you need, why it matters and what happens if nobody does it. People who help because they chose to will come back, and that is the whole difference.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

Have you used guilt to get work out of somebody?

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