The difference between genuine helping vs them trying to babysit you?

Question

Hi! I have trouble what to do if I am in a team with detecting how to tell if the person is genuinely helping and not trying to babysit? To me it is hard to tell the difference, once in my previous company I assumed they helped me, so i always ask for help, but in the end my manager and my team member default reaction is to not letting me to work alone, this is so frustrating and it is hard for me to get into senior position and proud of my work. Now I am in my current company I strived for independence but my manager end up give me feedback that I should collaborate enough, but sometimes I feel that he never let me to work alone.

I read one of your article and I know that we suppose to collaborate and discuss, and I did discussion with some engineers and I can solve the problem, but my manager still says that. I have trouble to see what is the cause, in the end I want to be the person that is great to work with but not spoiled (babysitted everytime). If there are people who tried to babysit you, can you give suggestions on how to react politely, as I don't want to block collaboration and block myself at the same time? Thank you!

Alex Chiou · Accepted Answer

This is a tricky situation - I recommend doing some retrospection about the work you've landed and whether anything about your track record could lean to a loss of trust in your ability amongst the team. Did you have some misses shipping things lately, either by missing target dates or delivering with poor quality?

If you feel like you have some room for improvement, I recommend these resources around learning from mistakes:

The difference between genuine helping vs them trying to babysit you?

It depends a lot on the energy they bring and what they come in with when asking to collaborate with you. Is it:

"Hey, I have a cool idea on how we can make your project X better - Let's talk about it!"
"Let me show you how to do this properly - It can be hard to get right."

If it's #1, that's more collaboration; if it's #2, that's more babysitting/hand-holding and is indicative of a lack of trust in you.

If it's more #2, I recommend having a honest conversation with your manager about it and why your team isn't confident in your ability.

Here's some good resources around becoming more independent as well:

The difference between genuine helping vs them trying to babysit you?

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