The Butterfly - The Danger of Helping Too Much

A man sits on the park bench every day to feed the birds. They have come to expect him because he sits on the same bench and comes at the same time every day. One day, he notices a beautiful caterpillar on the leaves of a branch next to the bench. Every day he watches as the caterpillar munches leaves and grows fat. Soon he is thrilled to see that the caterpillar is spinning a cocoon. The man keeps watch on the cocoon, and after a couple of weeks he notices the cocoon starting to crack. He sees antennae poking out, then front legs and watches as the butterfly struggles to emerge. Her struggle seems so intense and painful, the man begins to worry. The worry grows until he is convinced that the butterfly will not survive unless he helps. He gently pulls apart the pieces of the cocoon so the butterfly can easily emerge, and he sees the full beauty of her wings. At this moment, he feels so much relief in helping.

The emerging butterfly sits on the branch for a few hours. Over the next couple of days, she still hadn’t flown.

Since the butterfly was deprived of the struggle, her wings did not build the strength needed to fly. Sadly, she will never fly.

The well-intentioned man over-functioned. What is going on here?

The man was not aware of his own anxiety in this system and his resulting tendency toward rescuing. His over-functioning came from his low tolerance for the struggle around him. While his actions relieved the suffering of the butterfly and his own anxiety in the short run, it caused detrimental results.

In a leadership role, this rescuing leads to continued over-involvement of the leader and stunted growth of the employee. Which reinforces the over/under functioning seesaw.

“If you are overfunctioning in your leadership role, there is underfunctioning somewhere in the system you lead.”

What the man failed to realize was that his over-functioning contributed to the caterpillars under-functioning and as a result, when the butterfly did emerge, she was unequipped for her next challenge — flying.

As a leader, are you being helpful– or being too helpful?

Questions to consider:

• Is my default tendency to comfort or to challenge?
• What is my tolerance for another’s struggle and how can I deepen my conviction so that every person has a greater reservoir of strength and resiliency than meets the eye?
• When is rescuing is not the best impulse to follow?
• What are the responsible next steps to take?