Aid for Aid Workers Leadership Podcast

Let's face it, humanitarian and development work are reliably unpredictable.  Insecurity, limited resources, and many other factors can make doing a simple task such as visiting a community challenging.   One of the most dreaded tasks from my perspective as a leader was a funding cut.  A sudden cut in funding not only impacts the communities where we work but also the ability to keep our staff - a...

As a human, you've probably had a negative thought or two about your team members or direct reports.  It is only natural, and yet, judging others negatively is NOT helpful as a leader. When you judge your direct report, you are assuming what you are saying about them is a fact, when it isn't.  It is also not a useful place to be when you decide to have a performance based conversation. So how do w...

I am excited to share with you two lessons from the first level of my digital coaching course, The Aid Worker's Guide to Successful Coaching 101 .  After experiencing these two lessons my students' most common reaction is: "Wow, I thought this whole time I was practicing coaching, but I wasn't!" What about you?   These lessons will teach you the differences between coaching, counseling and consult...

As supervisors in international development it is easy to forget that we don't need to know all the answers.  When our teams come to us with problems, our instinct or habit may be to tell them how to resolve their problem.  Many of us may think that this is being a caring leader, but I would argue the opposite is true.  In this episode, I will share why. Resources mentioned: The Puzzle of Motivati...

Recently I attended the Humanitarian Leadership Conference administered by the Centre for Humanitarian Leadership .  There was a lot of talk of localizing leadership positions, and the desire expressed by INGO's to do so.  And yet, why is it not happening more rapidly? A study presented by Bioforce on "The State of Humanitarian Professions 2020" focused on just that - how is the way Human Resource...

If you're listening to this podcast, then you probably care about if your field staff feel valued.  But as leaders, there are always blindspots, or areas we do not see or even know to look for that could be counterproductive to the work we want to do. In this episode my guest Hiba Al-Mhammad shares her experience as a former field staff and what she wishes leaders around her would have known.  The...

Have you ever sat down with your team to discuss what went wrong with a donor visit or presentation, only to find everyone blaming each other and getting defensive?   In this episode I provide a quick tip you can use that will change these types of conversations from unproductive to solution driven.  

Are you making the best decisions for yourself and your team? We all want to become more caring and understanding leaders.  The thing is, we are also only human, and our emotions can sometimes cloud our judgement and decision making.   I see it all the time - the way we make decisions around time management and performance management - our emotions lead the way, and we end up making decisions that...

How much control do you have over your life? Probably more than you think. Many of us tend to give control over to others or our circumstances rather than take responsibility for our decisions.  You may not even realize that you're doing it. But taking responsibility for where we are in life can be very empowering.   In this episode I discuss how you can take more responsibility for your decisions...

It's easy to forget that most of what we call "reality" is actually a story.  A story we make up about ourselves and others.  So what's the story you're telling yourself - and how is it impacting your life and work? As we get wrapped up in our stories, we paint a picture of the world around us and those in it and call it "reality".  Sometimes it is good - and many times it is bad.  These bad stori...

We've all been there.  You have an amazing meeting with your team, and can't wait to see the progress you've made by your next meeting!  The next meeting comes and.... nothing.  No progress.  And no progress means wasted time, and resources - why are you even having these meetings if nothing happens afterward? I know how it goes.  I've seen it not only with my own team in the past but also with my...

We may have the best of intentions while coaching our team.  But coaching can be counter productive if not done correctly - and with my students there are three mistakes in particular that are worth noting.  In this episode you will learn three common mistakes coaches make, how they may impact the quality of your coaching and how to overcome those mistakes with a few simple techniques.

The word "coaching" certainly has a lot of definitions these days.  One of the most common misuses of the word "coaching" is for a type I am calling "checklist coaching."  This form of coaching is usually done once or twice a year and involves a list of questions that you ask one by one.   In this episode I share what checklist coaching is and four ways it differs from real coaching, which may hel...

We all want to be successful.  But what is success really, and how will you know when you have it? Today I share some ways to think about success that maybe you haven't considered and how you can start being successful right now.

If your team is not reaching your team goals, it could be for a simple reason.... they understand the goals, but not how to work together as a team.  In other words, they need operating values. I have put in place operating values for my own team and those of others over the years and found it very effective to increase team performance.  In this episode I share how you can create operating values...

There are a lot of INGO's and UN Agencies that claim to strengthen local civil society organizations, with the goal that local partner organizations can eventually become independent.  But how often does this actually take place, and what truly needs to happen in order for local partners to not depend so much on international organizations? In this episode I provide five ways you and your organiza...

We all have stories we tell ourselves about our work and lives.  For example, the story you tell yourself about why you didn't get that donor funding.  Or the story about your relationship with your team.  Or the story about living in a pandemic.  What we forget sometimes is that our stories are just that - stories.  And how we tell our story impacts how we feel and consequently how we show up in...

If you're like me, it helps to hear what something looks like in practice over just reading questions on a page.  In this bonus episode the Licensed Mental Health Counselor Kathleen Joseph shares one of her favorite exercises to do with clients to relieve stress and build resilience.  You can see the activity below, but if you want to know what it sounds like in practice (and how stressed I am rig...

Do you ever feel like this pandemic will never end?  Do you struggle to remove yourself from your work computer?  Do you struggle with boundaries when you are working and living in the same place? Do you wish you could support your team better with their own mental health, but don't know how to do that remotely?  If you said yes to any of these questions, then this episode is for you! My guest tod...

When is the last time you failed on purpose?  I mean you decided you wanted to fail, and you went for it.  And maybe you failed in a way that makes you want to hide for a week afterward.  But you learned from it, and kept going.  Or maybe you didn't. In this episode we discuss why you may want to schedule more failures in your future, and how we can start practicing.  It's not easy, but if you wan...

There's no instruction manual on how to be a good leader (believe me, I've looked), but there are some simple best practices we can follow.  In this episode I share three easy ways you can transform your leadership for the better.  By following these three practices, your team will become more motivated, confident and less likely to make mistakes.  

Our native language greatly influences how we see the world, since we think and express ourselves through words.  This means we are limited to our own vocabulary, which is shaped by our cultural values.   As language shapes our reality, and in international development and humanitarian work we collaborate with teams from a broad range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds, it becomes essential to...

Have you ever thought about how different cultures perceive time?   I am sure you've experienced it in humanitarian and international development.  You know, when you show up for a meeting on time and it doesn't start for two hours.  Or you wonder why your team thinks something you know will take two days will take two hours. All of these situations have to do with our perception of time.  In this...

Our thinking creates our reality.  This means one of the most important things we can do to achieve what we want in life is to become aware of what we are thinking, and how it is impacting us.  You may not even be aware how your thinking is impacting your work and life, but I have seen how certain thinking which is common amongst humanitarian and development workers greatly impacts the opportuniti...

Are you ready to set and actually achieve your goals this year?  In part one of this series we talked about the importance of setting up the right systems to achieve goals, in part two we talked about predicting obstacles, and in this episode we talk about the importance of identity. Our identity is the way we see ourselves, and until we see ourselves as a "runner" or a "project manager" then we a...