An ESSENTIAL Mindset Shift to Achieving Accelerated Professional Growth and Greater Impact as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader

What makes the difference between someone who achieves their professional goals and someone who does not?  Find out in this episode!

In this ten minute quick quote episode you will:

• Learn to see challenging moments as opportunities for growth and leadership development.
• Understand how reframing 'bad' situations can lead to positive outcomes for you and your team.
• Gain insights into handling difficult decisions with a perspective that fosters personal and professional growth.

Discover how to turn your leadership challenges into triumphs—listen to this episode now and start transforming obstacles into opportunities!

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.

This podcast empowers international development and humanitarian leaders to achieve high performance teams, fostering diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing, overcoming burnout and overwhelm, while maximizing impact and productivity.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

One Key to Achieving Accelerated Professional Growth and Greater Impact as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader

In today's episode, find out how looking differently at what you label as bad can help you become a stronger 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 and humanitarian development leader. So today we have a quick quote, which actually is not so quick. This is a Chinese parable.

That goes like this. Long ago, there was a widowed Chinese farmer. The farmer and his only son labored through the cold winds of winter and scorching rays of summer with their last remaining horse. One day the son didn't lock the gate of the stable properly and the horse bolted away. When neighbors learned what happened, they came to the farmer and said, "what a sadness

this is! Without your horse, you'll be unable to maintain the farm. What a failure that your son did not lock the gate properly. This is a great tragedy." And the farmer replied, "maybe yes. And maybe no." The next day the missing horse returned to the farmers' stable, bringing along with it six wild horses. The farmer's son locked the gate of the stable firmly behind all seven horses. When neighbors learned what happened, they came to the farmer and said, "what

happiness this brings! With seven horses, you'll be able to maintain the farm with three of them and sell the rest for huge profits. What a blessing! The farmer replied, "maybe yes. And maybe no." The next day, the farmer's son was breaking in one of the wild horses. The son got thrown from the horse, fell hard on rocks and broke his leg. When neighbors learn what happened, they came to the farmer and said, "what a great sadness this is. Now you'll be unable to count on your son's help. What a failure to break in the horse properly.

What a tragedy." The farmer or replied, "maybe yes, maybe no."

The next day, a general from the Imperial Chinese army arrived to conscript all the young men of the village into the army. Their assignment was to fight on the front lines of a battle against a terrifying enemy of overwhelming force. The farmer's son because of his broken leg was not taken. When neighbors learned what happened, they came to the farmer and said, "what a great joy your son avoided facing certain death on the front lines of the battle.

What a blessing." The farmer replied, "maybe yes. Maybe no."

So there are many ways to interpret the story, but for me, The way I'd like to relate it to Leadership is that some of what seem to be our most difficult moments as a leader or things that we might label bad at that moment, can later looking back on them because the ones that we realize we grew the most. So, for example, I remember when I first became a manager of a pretty large team. And there was someone on the team that had not been performing and they had not been performing for long before I became the manager. And it was something I knew that I had to address in other words I was going to have to terminate that person. And at that moment, I thought that this was a really horrible thing and that they were going to be angry with me and blame me for losing their livelihood and feel humiliated and all the things.

And so I actually

Delayed taking action on this and when I eventually decided to just go ahead and accept whatever, or however they reacted and that we should just go through with it.

And do something that many leaders before me had avoided probably for similar reasons because they saw it as a bad thing. I decided to take action regardless and terminate this person. And at the time when it happened. It it did seem like a very bad thing.

The person was upset, of course. And seemed very taken aback by this and so on as would be somewhat of a normal reaction.

As time went on a few months later, this person actually came back into the office. And met with me. And I was also sure at that moment that this was not going to be a very positive meeting. And I was very surprised when I saw this person and they were actually really happy. More happy than I'd ever seen them before. And they actually thanked to me For terminating them. They said that they had never had the courage to leave the organization and focus all of their time on a business that they had started years ago, but had never been able to focus on because they were also working this job.

And so when I terminated them, they began to focus more on the business and the business, it turns out was very successful. And they realized that they were happier and that they were better off. So it just goes to show you that we have our own interpretations based on what we think is bad in the moment.

But in the long run, we might actually see these same moments as opportunities to have grown or some of the more impactful moments of our leadership career. And something that you might be avoiding could be actually something that ends up benefiting you or others in some way, because we never know what is good or bad.

So right now something that you are labeling as bad and maybe avoiding because of it.

It could end up being something that if you took action on it, Would end up being very beneficial in the long run.

So, what is maybe a person on your team you are struggling with or a project or a situation that you see right now as being bad, but that in the long run may end up being beneficial to you in some way? I tell some of the people that I coach some of the greatest teachers in our lives are the people who are the most difficult to manage or supervise.

They are the ones where we have to grow as a leader in order to really fully accommodate them and take responsibility and create

the type of culture and team that we want. They're the ones that really test how much we want something. And we might label them as bad at that moment, but looking back on them, we might realize that we never would have changed anything about them. So a modern humanitarian and development leader looks for the growth and opportunity in every difficult situation, tries not to make assumptions and focuses on what's within their control to make a greater impact. All right on that note 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 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.