Aid for Aid Workers Leadership Podcast

What will make you successful at creating an independent, proactive team? Based on hundreds of hours of observation, I have come up with three components. I call them the Trust Triangle. The first is trust in your own ability (self-confidence), the second is trust in your team and the third is trust in your organization. In this episode we discuss why trust in your organization may prevent you fro...

Last week we discussed how it is essential to trust ourselves (self-confidence) before we can trust others. This week as part of the Trust Triangle I am introducing the importance of trusting your team. If you don't trust your team, how can you empower them? You won't. So how do you know if you trust your team? There are a few ways to know - and they may not be what you think. They may be things y...

Empower your team to do better work. Sounds great, right? So why don't more humanitarian and development leaders do it? It has to do with our trust levels. In order to lead in an empowering way and create a more inclusive environment, we need three essential components. It's what I call the Trust Triangle. We need to trust in ourselves (self-confidence), trust in our team and trust in our organiza...

If you're listening to this, you probably are interested in growing as a leader. So how can you grow continuously and become a better leader? This is what I share in this week's episode - the kinds of questions you can ask yourself that will help you keep growing and improving, so you can make the impact you want.   Resources Mentioned: The Coach Approach Leadership Style Registration open now unt...

It's important to recognize how much we have accomplished and milestones along the way in our leadership journey. Today I am celebrating episode 250 with a special guest, Mark Peter Notaras.  We discuss some recent achievements we have both accomplished, and the importance of recognizing how far we have come. Mark Peter Notaras was on episode 7 and now is back to share the handover of the Timor-Le...

Successful leaders have strong relationships with their teams. When your team feels you value them and trust them, they will want to help you succeed. When they win, you win. So how can you build a strong relationship? It starts with strong communication. Learn more in this week's episode on how certain communication skills (especially listening) can make the difference between building connection...

Many of us underestimate how our values influence how we feel and show up as leaders. How can you tell if you are not aligned with your values? You may feel stressed, frustrated or demotivated. When you understand your values and make decisions to prioritize them, you can become motivated, inspired and excited. I have seen it many times working with leaders - how simply understanding what motivate...

What makes us give up when we want to learn something new? We start out really motivated. We envision ourselves mastering the skill - dancing, budgeting, whatever it is. And then we start applying it... And we realize we have a long way to go to master this skill. We see how far off we are - how it seems almost impossible to become a great singer or delegator or whatever. And so we give up. Of cou...

If knowledge was the only thing preventing us from taking action, we would all be a lot healthier and manage our time better. But that's not the way it works. We know many things - like that we need to get more sleep. But knowing doesn't mean we will get more sleep. Before we are able to take action, we need to better understand the being part. That is, how is my identity helping me or hindering m...

We say we are humanitarians.  That we help people. But would a true humanitarian prioritize results over their team? This is unfortunately what many of us do. We say we are too busy to coach or work with developing our teams. Too busy on proposals or attending meetings that lead nowhere. We have lost sight of our priorities, and rather than being rewarded for prioritizing our teams and their devel...

We are told by a lot of external sources what we SHOULD want in life and work. For example, social media tells us what we should be doing, how we should be thinking. Advertisements tell us what cars we need or food to be fulfilled. Society also tells us what we should want - children, a house, a college degree, etc. And many of us follow this without questioning it. And yet - have you ever reflect...

We all have times where we procrastinate and put off doing something. Have you ever thought about why? At a simple level it has to do with avoiding a feeling we are having. For example, we feel overwhelm, or anxious or afraid when we think about doing something, and so we choose to do something else. Recently I found a simple thing you can do when planning your week that will reduce the chances yo...

When you think of skills that are important to list in your CV or resume, you probably think of hard skills.  That is, quantifiable or measurable accomplishments. Hard skills are important when it comes to tasks where we do not rely on others. But in team environments and as leaders, soft skills may even prove more important. You can do all the budgeting you want or data analysis, but if you do no...

When we first start a conversation with our team member, they may say they want to solve a certain problem. But if we allow them the ability to think things through, sometimes the original problem is not the REAL problem. In other words, what they say they want is not what they REALLY want. This is a powerful realization, and can mean the difference between having a conversation which results in n...

Are you humble? And if you say you're humble---does that make you not humble? We may think we are being humble with our teams. But many aid worker leaders (myself included) have come to define our validity as leaders with the ability to tell our teams what to do.   Our ego is tied to our ability to provide the answers. We are not being humble enough to admit our way is not the only way. And that a...

Have you ever learned a new skill and did it perfectly the first time? Probably not... at least if it's a skill like learning a language, riding a bike or delegating to your team. Even though it is almost impossible to do something perfectly the first time, many of us still think we can do so. I see it in my coaching students - the desire to do coaching perfectly the first time they try it. To ski...

Last week we looked at how to become aware of how we are using our time through conducting a Time Audit 2.0 (looking at both activities and energy level).  Now that you know how you currently use your time, we can start to decide if that is how we want to use our time.  The series of questions in this episode will help you decide how much control you have over your time, where your current actions...

"Every action you take is a vote for the person you wish to become." - James Clear, Atomic Habits This quote captures the topic of today perfectly.  That is, if you compound your actions on a daily or weekly basis, where will they lead you in a year, or even three?   Are you going in the direction you hope to go, or are you going in a direction someone else wants you to go? Will you achieve your g...

Our entire career as a leader - and in fact, our entire personal life as well - is a measure of how well we solve problems. The better we are at solving problems, the more we advance.  The more we are able to learn and overcome.  And through the failure along the way, we also grow stronger. So it's not hard to imagine why learning how to solve problems better is a very valuable skill.  Today I am...

The more you empower your team to come up with their own Development Plans, the more likely they are to take action.  And that is really the whole point, right? In this episode I share four powerful questions you can ask during a Development Plan Coaching conversation to help your direct reports determine what skills to learn, how to learn them, how to plan for unforeseen challenges and also prepa...

It always amazes me to see how my students incorporate coaching in their work.  At the time of this interview guest Inonge Wina-Chinyama was a Senior Advisor for MSI Zambia in the areas of youth and disabilities.  The nature of her role as an advisor is the opposite of coaching, that is telling others what to do.  And so it was very surprising to Inonge when by stepping away from advice and into a...

The words you use when planning your week matter. It may not seem like a big thing - but depending on how you are phrasing things in your calendar or to do list, you can end up procrastinating or not wanting to take action. I see many leaders - including myself - sometimes delay doing things because how they are listed in our calendar is not helpful. In this episode I share simple tips to help you...

It's not always easy to ask others for help.  It can make us feel vulnerable, incompetent or we don't want to burden someone else. And yet, there are times when it is actually our responsibility to ask for help. I am talking about when to ask your supervisor for help. Many of the leaders I work with are reluctant to ask for help, when it is obvious they need it and that doing so would alleviate a...

It is natural to have blindspots in our thinking and perspectives about things. For example, perhaps you travel to a different country and use your finger to point at someone, which is seen in that country as very offensive. Of course once you become aware of this, you will likely stop doing it (I hope at least). That is why the more we understand about our blindspots - the way we perceive things...

We sometimes forget that part of communication is silence. It can be very powerful to be silent after someone speaks. You can learn a lot. And as a humanitarian leader, that can be very valuable. Allowing space for our teams to express themselves, especially when working across cultures and differing linguistic backgrounds, is essential. So how do we allow for silence, and why don't we do it more...