The #1 Mistake Keeping NGO Teams Dependent

Do you feel like your team always brings you problems but rarely offers real solutions?

If you're constantly fielding the same questions or feel like your team can't move without your input, the issue might not be your team—it might be how much you believe in them. This episode challenges a common leadership blindspot that’s quietly holding your people back.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Discover the subtle ways leaders unintentionally shut down initiative and creativity.
• Learn how to ask questions that build ownership instead of dependence.
• Understand how to spot and amplify hidden potential in your team—starting today.

Listen now to shift from micromanager to empowering leader and watch your team grow in confidence, initiative, and problem-solving power.

Watch on YouTube Here

What Is Your Leadership Style? Free Quiz:

Want to know how to lead better? It starts by understanding your leadership style. To find out yours, take my free quiz “What Is Your Leadership Style” - you’ll immediately find out your default style, how it may be impacting your team and a few practical ways to become an even better leader. Just click on the link fill out your quiz and click submit.

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Do you find your team coming to you with more problems and solutions? Do they keep asking you the same questions or seem unable to resolve the same problems? Do they wait around for you before they take action? These are not signs of a weak team. Rather, they are signs that you lack belief in your team.

To become a modern leader, you must believe in your team, and that's what we're gonna talk about today. So my name is Torrey Peace, and I am the host of the Modern Humanitarian and Development Leadership podcast. Let's begin. So once again, to become a modern leader you need to believe in your team, and when you believe in your team, these things happen.

They become more creative with solutions, uh, that you might not have even thought of yourself. You won't [00:01:00] be spending as much time helping them as they become more pro proactive. They come to you less asking questions, and you will see them grow and become more confident so that they can fulfill their full potential.

And of course, all of these together mean you have a higher performing team, but it really requires that you believe in them before these things happen. So let me explain. Here are three ways that you may not be believing in your team right now that you can start believing in them more. So, number one, asking your team for their own ideas.

When you ask a question of your team, are you really interested in what they have to say? Or are you just wanting them to give you the answer that you're thinking in your head? When I, many leaders, when they start my [00:02:00] course becoming the modern humanitarian development leader, and they start to learn more about what coaching is and what.

Powerful questions are, and they realize that many of the questions they've been asking their team are questions that they are just testing their team. For example, what have you tried to solve this problem? They might ask that question, but then hope that their team member gives them the answer that they are already thinking.

In other words, they're asking them questions that they already know the answers to. When you do this, it is a sign that you don't believe in what your team member thinks. It's a sign that your solution that you have in mind you think is better, and that you are simply hoping that they parrot back to you what you're already thinking.

So this will not promote creativity and your team giving you ideas. It will just promote [00:03:00] you becoming more reinforced with your own way and your own ideas. So try noticing when you ask a question, what is your intention behind it? Are you really interested in your team's ideas? Or are you just trying to get them to pair it back to you?

What you are thinking or your own ideas? See if you can focus more on being curious about their ideas and how they are different from yours. And one way to know is when you ask a question without already knowing the answer to it. Okay, so the second thing that you can do to start believing in your teamwork is using their ideas.

It sounds so simple, and yet I see leaders do this all the time. I remember, and maybe you've had a friend like this where they keep asking you for advice about a problem that they're facing, [00:04:00] and they might ask you several times and you might give them similar advice each time, but no matter how much advice.

That I gave, they never listened. They never took that advice. They never implemented that advice, and so eventually I just stopped giving them ideas. Imagine that how your team feels when they give you ideas and then you never actually use them. Eventually they will probably stop giving you ideas because what's the point?

If your team does not currently come up with their own solutions or give you ideas, you might want to ask, how might you be contributing to that? And is it because the ideas that you've tried over the past week, how many of them come from your team rather than from you? When we [00:05:00] don't use our team ideas, their ideas will just, they'll stop sharing them.

So this is the second way to encourage your team, um, or encourage and show that you're, you believe in your team. And the third way is to look for things in your team that they don't even see in themselves. Look for ways that they are, you know, their potential to become even better and, uh, take on even more responsibility than they currently have.

This is a very powerful way of encouraging your team to grow, and it also shows that you believe in them. So some of the best leaders I have had have believed in me more than I believed in myself at the time. So for example, when I was head of office and Team Leste and the country manager, who was my supervisor at the time, he believed that I could [00:06:00] become the next country manager, that I could replace him when he left.

But in order for that to happen, we had to meet and get the approval from his supervisor or the regional level manager. And when we met with the regional level manager, I totally shut down. I was so nervous. I was not myself at all, and I did not show the confidence needed for him to really believe that I could take that position.

And afterwards my supervisor told me, you know, I know you can do this. You just need to show him. And so we had another meeting with him, with the regional level manager, and I showed him, I started to believe more in myself and by my supervisor speaking his belief in me out loud and showing me what he saw in me and simply encouraging me to grow past my [00:07:00] discomfort.

I was able to overcome my fear and live up to what? He saw in me and the result, the regional level manager also saw this in me, and my new confidence allowed me to become the next country manager. So remember, belief is not a feeling. It is a perspective that you have about your team, that you demonstrate through your actions towards them daily.

So this week I want you to pick a moment where you might normally step in and give ideas or tell your team what to do, and instead, pause and ask for your team's ideas. And when they come up with them, pick one and apply it. See how much more engaged and motivated your team can become simply [00:08:00] by showing them how much you believe in them.

Alright, until next week, keep evolving. Bye for now.

Are you the type of leader that tells others what to do, or do you let them figure it out for themselves? Understanding your leadership style is a first step to deciding what's working for you and what's not. To find out your leadership style, take my free quiz. What is your leadership style? You'll immediately find out your default style, how it may be impacting your team, and a few practical ways to become an even better leader.

Just click on the link in the show notes, www.aidforaidworkers.com/quiz. Fill out your quiz and click submit. So what are you waiting for? Go to www.aidforaidworkers.com/quiz and discover your leadership [00:09:00] style now. Your team will Thank you for it.