Have you ever considered the way you lead others could be adding to your workload?
Just as the way humanitarian and development work has evolved over the last 50 to 60 years, so has the need to lead differently.
In this episode you'll learn:
- How leadership has evolved in the humanitarian and development sector and current requirements of the Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader 2.0 (today's leaders)
- When to use different leadership styles effectively to get the most from your team
- How to know if your leadership style is adding to your workload, or lessening it
Stop creating more work for yourself and learn how to become the Modern Humanitarian Leader by listening now!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Welcome to the Aid for AidWorkers Leadership Podcast.
I'm Torrey Peace, a former aid worker,now leadership coach, whose mission is
to help you achieve the impact you'reseeking while empowering your team and
stepping away from the hustle so you canfocus on the things you love the most.
Sound good?
(00:29):
Let's get started.
Hello, my aid worker friend.
I hope you're having a great week.
I've been really enjoying the last weekbecause I just had several groups of
students join my coach approach courseand they're from all over the world.
(00:50):
I have some wonderful leaders fromSyria and Afghanistan and Pakistan
and East Africa and UK and Portugal.
And I've been partnering with the AgaKhan Foundation to help bring this coach
approach leadership style to their teams.
(01:12):
And it's so fun, so fun to see howwell they respond and how excited they
are to learn this new way of leading.
So that has been my week, butthat's what keeps me going.
It's my students.
I so enjoy working with them.
(01:33):
So.
I wanted to outline something for youbecause I feel like this is a very
interesting way of looking at theevolution of humanitarian and development
leadership over the last 40, 50 years,and also in terms of how we work with
(01:59):
communities and depending on whereyou are in this phase of leadership.
And sometimes it's necessary tobe in a certain phase, just like
when we have an emergency, it'snecessary to respond in a certain way.
But sometimes I think that leaders don'talways recognize how their particular
(02:23):
leadership or way of leading is actuallykind of, let's say old school or needs
an update and upgrade because the waythat they're leading now is actually
creating more work for them and possiblyfor you if you're listening to this.
So let's get to it.
(02:44):
Shall we?
So, I think we've all experienced whenwe are out in a community doing a project
evaluation and you see that the communityhas not exactly acted as you had planned.
In other words, they're notfollowing the project plan.
(03:09):
They're not following the outlineof what we thought would happen.
For example, I've seen times where grainbarrels were distributed and when we went
back to see how they were being used,they were being used for water storage.
(03:29):
Or maybe you distributed some seedsand the community, instead of planting
them, actually traded them for someother food item or for flour or
something else that they needed.
Or maybe they actually sold somethingthat has been donated, like hospital
(03:53):
equipment and used the money topay for school fees for their kids.
So, you know, whatever it is, we can'tbe mad at the community in these cases.
It definitely can be frustrating,but it's really more our fault in
this situation than it is theirs.
(04:13):
And there's a clearreason why this happened.
And that is because we did not do enoughwork up front to understand their real
need, but also maybe we were restricted insome way from being able to do that work.
For example, I know a lot ofproposals, are very restrictive
(04:35):
and how you can use funding.
And so this also can leadto this kind of a situation.
But I find it interesting that there'sthis whole evolution of humanitarian
and development work, and I see itparalleling in some ways the development
of, or the evolution of, leadership inthe humanitarian and development space.
(04:59):
And that's what I wanted to talk to youabout today, because these stories that
I'm telling you now, where we go out inthe community and we see that, "Oh, this
isn't happening the way it's supposed to"I think there's some recognition now that
we need to get the community more involvedin the project proposals and so on.
(05:23):
But we need more human centered design.
We need this different way of engagingthe community to have more effective
development and humanitarian work.
And in the same way, we also need toengage our teams in a different way
if we want to empower them and soalso create less work for ourselves.
(05:48):
So let me just outlinewhat I mean by this.
In the beginning, and this happens stillsometimes, but, I think definitely in
the old days of humanitarian work, whenthere was a crisis, we gave a man a fish.
You know, that saying, give himin a fish and he'll fish for a
(06:11):
day or he'll eat for a day, sorry.
So in this phase, we were givingmen fish or hopefully women as well.
And we were just distributing whateverit was because there was no local
market and they just needed the basics.
They just needed foodor just, to survive.
(06:33):
And so we were justgiving them those things.
And this I parallel to when a, maybea new leader comes to a team, or a
leader has new team members who, havelittle experience, so they don't have
(06:54):
something to, draw from just like thecommunity doesn't have a local market
-it's been destroyed in thenatural disaster or whatever
it is, the, the conflict...
In the same way, our team maybecomes to us when they're new with
nothing to draw from no, no experienceor, um, not knowing what to do.
(07:18):
And so what we do, we also givea man a fish in the sense that
we just tell them what to do.
We give them information orinstructions and then they go and do it.
So this is the, the first stage of whatI see a parallel between humanitarian
and development work when we're ata very early stage of just giving,
(07:40):
and the same with our leadership.
When we first start leading anew team, then maybe they're
starting from not knowing.
And so we just need totell them what to do.
--- Stranded vehicles?
Oh no.
Donor visits?.
(08:01):
Oh, man.
And delayed procurements.
You've got a lot on your mind and we wantto make it easy to get the best leadership
content delivered directly to your inbox.
All you have to do is join ourweekly email list and you'll receive
a weekly email with the latestpodcast episodes, as well as any
additional tools and tips to sign upnow go to www.aidforaidworkers.com.
(08:24):
That's www.aidforaidworkers.com and clickon the sign up for weekly emails in the
navigation bar at the top of the page.
Now back to today's episode.
So the next stage of development,is to teach a man to fish, right?
(08:45):
And so, in that case, when we're talkingabout working with the community,
they're stable enough where they havetime and the ability to learn a new
and perhaps better way of planting orimproving on what they are already doing.
So we teach them some kind ofagricultural technique or maybe
(09:06):
how to save their money in acertain way or whatever it is.
And so this is the next phase wherethey're a little bit better off so
that they have something to draw from.
And this is the same in thenext phase of leadership.
So in this phase, we go from tellingour teams what to do because they have
no experience to teaching them howthey can do something for themselves.
(09:30):
So we teach them how to do a detailedplan or monitoring and evaluation or
how to write a report or whatever it is.
So in this stage of developmentand in leadership, it's a bit more
sustainable in terms of getting someoneto do things on their own, right?
Just like that saying, teach a manto fish, he'll eat for a lifetime.
(09:55):
However, now we're entering a new phaseof development and humanitarian work.
And this is where we are now andwhere I see the future is going.
Where we empower a man to dohis own thinking or to decide,
does he even want to fish?
(10:15):
Maybe he wants to do somethingelse, or how does he make
his fishing business grow?
Or how does he create a business?
So it's becoming more common nowto empower communities to do things
themselves by giving them moneyand asking them, what do you want?
How do you want to develop yourselves?
(10:38):
We believe you are capable andthat you know better than we do.
And in terms of leadership, this nextphase, this, this phase now that we
are entering and we have been enteringis what I am calling the Modern
Humanitarian and Development Leader 2.
(11:00):
0.
So in this phase, we empower ourteams to do things their own way.
Just like we offer the communitymoney and allow them to buy what they
need or to do what they want with it.
We allow our teams to take what theyknow and be able to implement or problem
(11:22):
solve and do the things where they takegreater responsibility and feel confident
in their own ability to do something.
This is where we come to how youmay be adding to your own workload
according to the way you are leading.
(11:42):
So if you are in the first phaseof leadership, the telling phase.
You might be in that phase if there'sa new team and they really don't
have experience or they don't knowwhat to do, then yes, you probably
need to tell them what to do.
Or in certain situations like high risk orreputational risk, those kinds of things.
(12:03):
However, eventually we need to evolveto at least the second phase of teaching
them how to do things for themselves.
And that is also verygood and more sustainable.
Like we said, teach a man to fish,but now we are entering this third
phase of the Modern Humanitarianand Development Leadership 2.
(12:27):
0, which involves how do we empowerour teams and really trust that they
have enough experience to draw fromwhere they know what to do, but we
need to have a conversation with themwhere we can help them find out what
(12:48):
are the obstacles, what are the blocks,and why they're not taking action?
This is what I'm teaching inthe Coach Approach because
it's not something intuitive.
These conversations on how to helpothers become more confident or aware
of how they are doing things right nowthat might be keeping them stuck, that
(13:12):
they know what they want to do, but wecan help them uncover why they are not
taking action, why they're not doing it.
And this is the way of the ModernHumanitarian and Development
leader.
Not only in the way we engage ourteam, but also in the way we engage
the community, the government andimplementing partners so that they take
(13:36):
ownership over what they are doing,that they take more responsibility.
And that leads to them takingmore of the workload from you.
Because like I've seen with so manyof my students, when they start using
this style, they see the communitiesstart to take ownership over what they
(13:57):
want to do, or they see the governmentorganizing their own meetings, they see
their team starting to make decisionsfor themselves and be more proactive.
And this in turn allows you to freeup your time and changes your role
as the leader to help make yourteam stronger and to make an impact
(14:18):
through them rather than with them.
So I want you to notice throughout yourweek, how often are you creating more work
for yourself by the way you are leading?
Are you creating dependency orare you having conversations
that empower those around you?
(14:39):
And where will this way of leading thatyou are currently doing now bring you in
a year, two years or three years from now?
Will you evolve to be the ModernHumanitarian and Development Leader
2.0 or will you stay in the oldschool way of giving a man a fish?
(15:05):
The way we are doingdevelopment is evolving and our
leadership style should too.
But being aware of how you are leadingnow is that first step to change.
And then the next step is how do I nowempower those around me to do their best
(15:27):
work so that we can broaden our impact?
All right, that's it for this week.
So great to talk to youagain and see you next week.
Bye for now.
Hey, if you are ready to step up yourleadership game, I want to invite
you to join my coaching course foraid worker leaders, where you're
(15:48):
going to learn how to master coachingskills in order to empower your team
to become more proactive, confident,and motivated at what they do, which
of course will help you achievemore impact for them and for you.
Just head over to www.
aidforaidworkers.
com and click on thecoaching course waiting list.
(16:11):
So you'll be the first to know whendoors open for the next enrollment.
Can't wait to see you there.
Welcome to the Aid for AidWorkers Leadership Podcast.
I'm Torrey Peace, a former aid worker,now leadership coach, whose mission is
to help you achieve the impact you'reseeking while empowering your team and
stepping away from the hustle so you canfocus on the things you love the most.
Sound good?
(00:29):
Let's get started.
Hello, my aid worker friend.
I hope you're having a great week.
I've been really enjoying the last weekbecause I just had several groups of
students join my coach approach courseand they're from all over the world.
(00:50):
I have some wonderful leaders fromSyria and Afghanistan and Pakistan
and East Africa and UK and Portugal.
And I've been partnering with the AgaKhan Foundation to help bring this coach
approach leadership style to their teams.
(01:12):
And it's so fun, so fun to see howwell they respond and how excited they
are to learn this new way of leading.
So that has been my week, butthat's what keeps me going.
It's my students.
I so enjoy working with them.
(01:33):
So.
I wanted to outline something for youbecause I feel like this is a very
interesting way of looking at theevolution of humanitarian and development
leadership over the last 40, 50 years,and also in terms of how we work with
(01:59):
communities and depending on whereyou are in this phase of leadership.
And sometimes it's necessary tobe in a certain phase, just like
when we have an emergency, it'snecessary to respond in a certain way.
But sometimes I think that leaders don'talways recognize how their particular
(02:23):
leadership or way of leading is actuallykind of, let's say old school or needs
an update and upgrade because the waythat they're leading now is actually
creating more work for them and possiblyfor you if you're listening to this.
So let's get to it.
(02:44):
Shall we?
So, I think we've all experienced whenwe are out in a community doing a project
evaluation and you see that the communityhas not exactly acted as you had planned.
In other words, they're notfollowing the project plan.
(03:09):
They're not following the outlineof what we thought would happen.
For example, I've seen times where grainbarrels were distributed and when we went
back to see how they were being used,they were being used for water storage.
(03:29):
Or maybe you distributed some seedsand the community, instead of planting
them, actually traded them for someother food item or for flour or
something else that they needed.
Or maybe they actually sold somethingthat has been donated, like hospital
(03:53):
equipment and used the money topay for school fees for their kids.
So, you know, whatever it is, we can'tbe mad at the community in these cases.
It definitely can be frustrating,but it's really more our fault in
this situation than it is theirs.
(04:13):
And there's a clearreason why this happened.
And that is because we did not do enoughwork up front to understand their real
need, but also maybe we were restricted insome way from being able to do that work.
For example, I know a lot ofproposals, are very restrictive
(04:35):
and how you can use funding.
And so this also can leadto this kind of a situation.
But I find it interesting that there'sthis whole evolution of humanitarian
and development work, and I see itparalleling in some ways the development
of, or the evolution of, leadership inthe humanitarian and development space.
(04:59):
And that's what I wanted to talk to youabout today, because these stories that
I'm telling you now, where we go out inthe community and we see that, "Oh, this
isn't happening the way it's supposed to"I think there's some recognition now that
we need to get the community more involvedin the project proposals and so on.
(05:23):
But we need more human centered design.
We need this different way of engagingthe community to have more effective
development and humanitarian work.
And in the same way, we also need toengage our teams in a different way
if we want to empower them and soalso create less work for ourselves.
(05:48):
So let me just outlinewhat I mean by this.
In the beginning, and this happens stillsometimes, but, I think definitely in
the old days of humanitarian work, whenthere was a crisis, we gave a man a fish.
You know, that saying, give himin a fish and he'll fish for a
(06:11):
day or he'll eat for a day, sorry.
So in this phase, we were givingmen fish or hopefully women as well.
And we were just distributing whateverit was because there was no local
market and they just needed the basics.
They just needed foodor just, to survive.
(06:33):
And so we were justgiving them those things.
And this I parallel to when a, maybea new leader comes to a team, or a
leader has new team members who, havelittle experience, so they don't have
(06:54):
something to, draw from just like thecommunity doesn't have a local market
-it's been destroyed in thenatural disaster or whatever
it is, the, the conflict...
In the same way, our team maybecomes to us when they're new with
nothing to draw from no, no experienceor, um, not knowing what to do.
(07:18):
And so what we do, we also givea man a fish in the sense that
we just tell them what to do.
We give them information orinstructions and then they go and do it.
So this is the, the first stage of whatI see a parallel between humanitarian
and development work when we're ata very early stage of just giving,
(07:40):
and the same with our leadership.
When we first start leading anew team, then maybe they're
starting from not knowing.
And so we just need totell them what to do.
--- Stranded vehicles?
Oh no.
Donor visits?.
(08:01):
Oh, man.
And delayed procurements.
You've got a lot on your mind and we wantto make it easy to get the best leadership
content delivered directly to your inbox.
All you have to do is join ourweekly email list and you'll receive
a weekly email with the latestpodcast episodes, as well as any
additional tools and tips to sign upnow go to www.aidforaidworkers.com.
(08:24):
That's www.aidforaidworkers.com and clickon the sign up for weekly emails in the
navigation bar at the top of the page.
Now back to today's episode.
So the next stage of development,is to teach a man to fish, right?
(08:45):
And so, in that case, when we're talkingabout working with the community,
they're stable enough where they havetime and the ability to learn a new
and perhaps better way of planting orimproving on what they are already doing.
So we teach them some kind ofagricultural technique or maybe
(09:06):
how to save their money in acertain way or whatever it is.
And so this is the next phase wherethey're a little bit better off so
that they have something to draw from.
And this is the same in thenext phase of leadership.
So in this phase, we go from tellingour teams what to do because they have
no experience to teaching them howthey can do something for themselves.
(09:30):
So we teach them how to do a detailedplan or monitoring and evaluation or
how to write a report or whatever it is.
So in this stage of developmentand in leadership, it's a bit more
sustainable in terms of getting someoneto do things on their own, right?
Just like that saying, teach a manto fish, he'll eat for a lifetime.
(09:55):
However, now we're entering a new phaseof development and humanitarian work.
And this is where we are now andwhere I see the future is going.
Where we empower a man to dohis own thinking or to decide,
does he even want to fish?
(10:15):
Maybe he wants to do somethingelse, or how does he make
his fishing business grow?
Or how does he create a business?
So it's becoming more common nowto empower communities to do things
themselves by giving them moneyand asking them, what do you want?
How do you want to develop yourselves?
(10:38):
We believe you are capable andthat you know better than we do.
And in terms of leadership, this nextphase, this, this phase now that we
are entering and we have been enteringis what I am calling the Modern
Humanitarian and Development Leader 2.
(11:00):
0.
So in this phase, we empower ourteams to do things their own way.
Just like we offer the communitymoney and allow them to buy what they
need or to do what they want with it.
We allow our teams to take what theyknow and be able to implement or problem
(11:22):
solve and do the things where they takegreater responsibility and feel confident
in their own ability to do something.
This is where we come to how youmay be adding to your own workload
according to the way you are leading.
(11:42):
So if you are in the first phaseof leadership, the telling phase.
You might be in that phase if there'sa new team and they really don't
have experience or they don't knowwhat to do, then yes, you probably
need to tell them what to do.
Or in certain situations like high risk orreputational risk, those kinds of things.
(12:03):
However, eventually we need to evolveto at least the second phase of teaching
them how to do things for themselves.
And that is also verygood and more sustainable.
Like we said, teach a man to fish,but now we are entering this third
phase of the Modern Humanitarianand Development Leadership 2.
(12:27):
0, which involves how do we empowerour teams and really trust that they
have enough experience to draw fromwhere they know what to do, but we
need to have a conversation with themwhere we can help them find out what
(12:48):
are the obstacles, what are the blocks,and why they're not taking action?
This is what I'm teaching inthe Coach Approach because
it's not something intuitive.
These conversations on how to helpothers become more confident or aware
of how they are doing things right nowthat might be keeping them stuck, that
(13:12):
they know what they want to do, but wecan help them uncover why they are not
taking action, why they're not doing it.
And this is the way of the ModernHumanitarian and Development
leader.
Not only in the way we engage ourteam, but also in the way we engage
the community, the government andimplementing partners so that they take
(13:36):
ownership over what they are doing,that they take more responsibility.
And that leads to them takingmore of the workload from you.
Because like I've seen with so manyof my students, when they start using
this style, they see the communitiesstart to take ownership over what they
(13:57):
want to do, or they see the governmentorganizing their own meetings, they see
their team starting to make decisionsfor themselves and be more proactive.
And this in turn allows you to freeup your time and changes your role
as the leader to help make yourteam stronger and to make an impact
(14:18):
through them rather than with them.
So I want you to notice throughout yourweek, how often are you creating more work
for yourself by the way you are leading?
Are you creating dependency orare you having conversations
that empower those around you?
(14:39):
And where will this way of leading thatyou are currently doing now bring you in
a year, two years or three years from now?
Will you evolve to be the ModernHumanitarian and Development Leader
2.0 or will you stay in the oldschool way of giving a man a fish?
(15:05):
The way we are doingdevelopment is evolving and our
leadership style should too.
But being aware of how you are leadingnow is that first step to change.
And then the next step is how do I nowempower those around me to do their best
(15:27):
work so that we can broaden our impact?
All right, that's it for this week.
So great to talk to youagain and see you next week.
Bye for now.
Hey, if you are ready to step up yourleadership game, I want to invite
you to join my coaching course foraid worker leaders, where you're
(15:48):
going to learn how to master coachingskills in order to empower your team
to become more proactive, confident,and motivated at what they do, which
of course will help you achievemore impact for them and for you.
Just head over to www.
aidforaidworkers.
com and click on thecoaching course waiting list.
(16:11):
So you'll be the first to know whendoors open for the next enrollment.
Can't wait to see you there.
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