How to Stop Being a Victim and FINALLY Take Responsibility to Create the Impact You’re Seeking as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader

Are you unknowingly playing the victim in your role as a humanitarian and international development leader? Discover how to become a hero and avoid burnout in today's episode!

As a leader, you might feel overwhelmed by your workload, not having control of your time, and team responsibilities. This episode addresses how these common challenges lead to burnout and offers actionable steps to take control and make a greater impact.

In this episode you will:

• Learn to recognize and overcome the three most common victim mindsets that hinder your productivity and well-being.
• Discover how shifting your perspective can empower you to achieve greater impact and avoid burnout.
• Gain practical strategies to take control of your time, workload, and team dynamics.

Play this episode now to stop being a victim and start being the hero of your own leadership journey!

Resources mentioned:

Leading Well Report by CHS Alliance and ICVA

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

How to Stop Being a Victim and FINALLY Take Responsibility to Create the Impact You’re Seeking as a Humanitarian and Development Leader

On today's episode learn why you need to stop being a victim if you want to avoid burnout as a humanitarian and development leader.

Welcome to The Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader podcast, the podcast helping humanitarian and development supervisors make a greater impact by taking control of your time, leading more inclusively and empowering your team all the while avoiding stress, burnout, and overwhelm. I'm your host, leadership coach and former aid worker, Torrey Peace.

Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hello, my aspiring modern humanitarian and development leader. In today's episode, you are going to discover: three common ways of thinking in the humanitarian and development sectors that lead you to being a victim and slow down your ability to achieve impact, why being a victim in these areas leads to burnout, and how you can stop being a victim and become a hero of your own story and achieve the impact you're seeking even starting this week.

So in the 2021 Leading Well report by the CHS Alliance, there was a quote that I found particularly interesting about what prevents leaders in humanitarian development from achieving greater wellbeing. And that quote is "prioritization is a struggle, modeling self care and delegation or giving people space to do their jobs."

These are some of the very reasons that are leading leaders to burn out.

After coaching and working with hundreds of humanitarian and development leaders, I see three areas related to this quote where you might see yourself as a victim. Number one: that you have no control over your time. Number two: that you are a victim to your team, that you need to tell them what to do. And number three: that you have no control over your workload. When you believe you are a victim in these areas and by victim, I mean that you feel hopeless or helpless that you have no control in these three areas, time, team, and workload

this is a recipe for burnout. And that is because when we are a victim, We are powerless. You think you can not spend your time the way you want to and that you have to be available all the time to tell your team what to do. And also that you can't say no to extra work. These ways of thinking are what I call "high-performance syndrome

thoughts" because they come from the good intention of wanting to perform at a high level. But in fact, they are leading to the opposite. And they are so common in the humanitarian development sectors. These ways of thinking lead to taking on more work than we can handle, having to work longer hours, and feeling overwhelmed and overloaded. So how can you stop being a victim in these areas and start creating the impact that you're seeking in order to become a modern, humanitarian and development leader? Well, the first step is just admitting to yourself that you are being a victim. That you do have a choice. That you are choosing to see yourself as helpless and powerless. That you do actually have control over your time. Or you can stop being available at times to your team or that you can control your workload.

The first step is self-awareness and admission. It may be a bit painful for some of you to admit this to yourself because no one wants to be a victim. And you have to admit that you have been in a position where you are just accepting things the way they are, and that you're not taking action to change them.

When we see we are choosing how to use our time because no one can make you choose to use your time a certain way, then we admit that we can change or choose differently. We empower ourselves to be able to become a hero. So once you admit you are in a position where you are a victim right now, but you also acknowledge or see that you have a choice, then you can decide to change. How do you want to take control of your time or your situation so that you are the hero instead of the victim?

But being a hero is not always the comfortable choice.

And that is sometimes why it's the less chosen one. You may be going against the norm. In other words, maybe people around you also believe they have no control over their time or their workload or their team, and so they are behaving in that way and being victims as well. And so when you try to do something different, it's going to be uncomfortable. As the Leading Well report says, most leaders are being victim to their time, their team in some way.

So it takes courage to be a hero and admit that you have a choice and that you want to do things differently. Even if it's differently from all those around you. That you can choose to prioritize your time according to high value nurturing tasks that lead to more impact. That you can choose to allow your team to do things their way and not be available all the time. And that you can say no to extra work and that by doing so it does not mean that you are a bad person, but that you are just setting an example and allowing others to do the same.

This is what I teach leaders in my course "Becoming the Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader"

Sometimes it helps to have others in the group of students that are also working towards the same thing. So that you feel you are not alone, which is why in the course, we encourage them to meet up with each other. And to have these discussions about how it does take courage to be a hero of your own story. And to change this traditional way of thinking. To overcome the high-performance syndrome thinking. But how can you create an environment or a team where you can create this change in your own organization? Maybe try doing it this week, choose one of these areas where you feel, or you see you are being a victim and want to be a hero. And try slowly making that transition to become a hero. Take one action that will lead you in the direction of taking control of your time or your team or your workload. And then when you are okay with that and see that the world does not end

if I say no to this extra work or if I say to my team that I'm not available for this one hour, then you can try a little bit more.

And a little bit more until before, you know, it, you are the hero, not only for yourself, but for those around you as well. And just to say that this is not about going to the opposite extreme of saying no to everything or to not being available at all for your team. That is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is the majority of you, you probably are one of them. Are working from one of the extremes where you are always available or you're always saying yes to extra work. So, how can you balance that in order to have a more healthy relationship with yourself and with others?

And on Wednesdays quick quote, episode, learn the one thing you need to have control over in order to achieve your goals as a humanitarian and development leader. And as a hint, it's not your time. Until then 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 the 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 style now. Your team will thank you for it.