Stop Reacting: Overcome Uncertainty and Take Control of Your NGO Career

Are you steering your leadership career—or just reacting to whatever opportunities and funding happen to appear?

In a sector shaped by funding shifts, restructuring, and constant uncertainty, it’s easy to feel like your career path is out of your hands. This episode helps you move from reacting to circumstances to intentionally creating a leadership direction that gives you clarity, confidence, and control—even when everything around you feels unpredictable.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Why so many humanitarian leaders feel forced into career changes and the hidden mindset that keeps them stuck in reaction mode.
• A practical three-step approach to designing your own path instead of waiting for roles to appear.
• Powerful reflection questions that help you clarify your vision, align your actions, and build momentum toward the leadership future you actually want.

Press play now to learn how to turn uncertainty into direction and start shaping a leadership path that’s driven by your vision—not your circumstances.

Watch on YouTube Now

Ready to Lead with Clarity — Even in Uncertainty?

If this episode resonated with you and you’re ready to stop reacting and start leading with intention, I invite you to join Becoming the Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader.

In this six-week course, you’ll clarify the impact you want to have, let go of habits that keep you overextended, empower your team, and gain back time while increasing your effectiveness.

The next cohort begins March 10th.

Learn more and register here: https://www.aidforaidworkers.com/modern-course

I’d love to support you inside the course. 

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Stop Reacting: Overcome Uncertainty and Take Control of Your NGO Career

Torrey: [00:00:00] If there were a picture of uncertainty in the dictionary, it would probably be the work of a humanitarian and development leader. Let's face it - funding cuts, political instability. climate crises, AI disruption, organizational restructuring. In our sector, uncertainty is not the exception, it's expected. And lately I've had more and more conversations with leaders who are leaving the aid world.

Now, let me get this straight. Leaving this sector is not inherently bad. But what saddens me is, many are not leaving because they want to. They're leaving because they feel like they don't have a choice. Because funding was cut or their role disappeared, or because there's nothing available. So [00:01:00] today, I want to give you a new option for managing uncertainty, and in this episode you're going to discover why leaders feel forced into career shifts in the NGO world, the hidden mindset trap that keeps you reactive. And three steps to creating your own path, as well as reflection questions that you can use immediately to take control of your destiny instead of allowing others to determine it. Sound good? Let's get started, shall we?

My name is Torrey Peace, and I am the host of the Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader podcast.

Let's start with why so many leaders feel forced to make some type of career shift or to leave the sector. In many organizations, career pathways feel predefined.

When I [00:02:00] worked for an INGO, it felt like there were mainly two tracks. They even told us this, you could do technical track or you could do a managerial track, and that was the basic structure. And at the time I was very interested, I was doing a lot of work with savings and lending groups, and so I wanted to choose the technical track.

So, I actually vocalized that to a regional manager who was visiting at the time and had asked me, 'What do you want to do, you know, which track do you want to take'? And I said, 'I want to become a savings and lending, uh, community advisor'. And he told me, I remember he looked at me and he said, 'That's great that you want to become a Head of Programs', and Head of Programs is actually a managerial track.

It was [00:03:00] the opposite of what I wanted, but he had already predetermined because of the organization's demand, because of the way things were at the time that most likely I was gonna end up on this managerial track instead. Now what's interesting is that over time, I actually started to create my own track and make it technical because of - looking for opportunities with savings and lending, gaining enough experience to become moved to Asia. And eventually, I was even asked to help out with the Philippines' program. So, I started building this reputation for having a technical ability in the savings and lending communities, uh, which is what I wanted.

And eventually, I decided instead to stay on the managerial track because number [00:04:00] one, I realized I really liked leadership, and number two, I became a country manager. So I skipped over the head of programs position and was able to, um, start working in this really exciting new role. But what I noticed over time is that people in our sector, most leaders, including myself initially, don't design their careers. They fall into them. They say yes to opportunities, they respond to openings, they adapt to funding. And they wait to see what becomes available. The norm becomes, let me see what's next, rather than, let me create what's next.

And that's a big difference. So when funding shifts or roles begin to disappear, if your career has been entirely reactive, it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under you. Because you weren't [00:05:00] steering, you were responding. So here's the hidden trap. Most leaders believe what's possible is only what currently exists.

They believe, if there's no funding, it's not possible. If there's no opening, it's not possible, or if there's no position, it's not possible. But, what's actually limiting them is not their resources. It's the absence of clarity. When I ask leaders, when I coach leaders and I ask them, if you had no boundaries, you had no funding constraints, you had no structural limitations, what would you be doing?

Most do not know because, not because they don't lack ambition, but because they've never even given themselves permission to imagine it. They've internalized that uncertainty. They've internalized waiting, and so [00:06:00] external uncertainty turns into internal uncertainty. This is why clarity is the first pillar of being a clear leader.

Without clarity, your default is to react. With clarity, you can begin to create instead. So let's make this practical, right? Here are three steps that you can do to create your own path and become what I like to call a CLEAR leader. So the step number one is determine what you want to create, which means you need a clear vision.

If you are not limited by funding, not limited by what currently exists, not limited by a current title, what path would you want to take? What kind of leader would you want to become? What drives you? What gets you excited? What's the impact that you would like to have? [00:07:00] This is where most people stop, because it feels indulgent or unrealistic. But clarity is not indulgent.

It's intentional, it's foundational. So, my husband actually once created his own security-focused position that did not exist before. There was no job description, no predefined pathway, but he had that clarity. He knew what he wanted to create, and without that nothing else would've happened. So clarity alone isn't enough, right?

We need to be clear about where we want it to go, but you also need to take action. So we need to start aligning our actions with the clarity, with your destination, with your vision. So this might look like looking for funding streams aligned with your vision, seeking out [00:08:00] specific opportunities or experiences in the area where you wanna go. Volunteering for projects that build relevant skills, communicating your vision to supervisors, building coalitions, or testing small pilots. These are all ways of, instead of asking what's available, start asking, how can I move toward this? So this shifts you from reactive to generative.

You are no longer waiting for permission. You are actually building momentum, and there's a difference. So step three, step one, once again, is to determine what you wanna create. Step two is aligning your actions to create what you want. And then step three is to stop occasionally and to adjust. So creating your path doesn't mean rigidly sticking to one idea forever, right?

Things might change. [00:09:00] Things might change in your own desires or your own vision. So it's important to periodically stop and ask yourself what's working, what's not working, and what needs to shift. So maybe the impact you want evolves, maybe new information emerges. Leadership is a process - clarity, action, adjustment.

This is how you manage uncertainty and this is how you create your own destiny. So now here's where this becomes real leadership. Are you limiting your team in the same way that you may be limiting yourself? Okay, so an interesting question, right? If you are limiting yourself and your own opportunities, how might you be doing the same thing with your team?

Are you only offering growth which exists? Or are you asking [00:10:00] your team, what do you want to create? What kind of impact excites you? How can you experiment and move toward that? When you model generative leadership, you normalize agency. You normalize them taking control of their own destiny, just like you are doing yourself.

And in a sector that feels so unstable, giving people agency is really stabilizing. So, I want you to leave with these reflection questions that you can immediately start applying today. Take a notebook and actually sit with these. Number one, if you were not limited by funding or current roles, what would you want to create for yourself?

Number two, what skills would that future version of you need? Number three, who would need to know about your vision, who would you need to communicate that to in [00:11:00] order to help make it happen? And number four, what small action could you take in the next 30 days to start moving toward it? And then finally, number five, where are you currently waiting instead of creating?

Mm-hmm. So, you do not need certainty about the sector. You need clarity about yourself. Uncertainty is not going to go away. It's always going to be with us in some way or another, especially in the humanitarian and development world. Funding cycles will continue. Politics will continue. Technology will continue to evolve, but you do not have to let those forces determine your destiny.

You can choose to leave, you can choose to stay, but let it be your choice. Not a reaction, but a creation. That is what it means to be a clear leader, and that is [00:12:00] what real leadership is all about. Okay, until next week, keep evolving. Bye for now.