Stop Waiting for Others and Start Creating the Change You Want as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader

Are you tired of waiting for your organization to help you achieve work-life balance or stop working long hours?

Learn the secret to experiencing the change you want as a humanitarian and development leader in today’s quick quote episode inspired by this quote:

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.  We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.  We are the change that we seek."  - Barack Obama

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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:

Stop Waiting for Others and Start Creating the Change You Want as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader

 Learn the secret to master lasting change as a humanitarian and development leader in today's quick quote, episode.

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.

 Welcome aspiring modern humanitarian and development leaders. So today's quote is "change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time, we are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." Barack Obama.

When I hear this quote, I think of how as humans. I think human nature to want to be saved, to want to look for the guru, to want to look for a hero. Who's going to do it for us. Who's going to save the world. Who will make things better. And as long as we are waiting for someone else, we are powerless. We do not take action because we are waiting for some external thing that we cannot control to help us. And not to say that we need to save ourselves in every situation or we need to save the world and do everything ourselves. But what I see in the humanitarian and development sector is that sometimes we wait for others to create lasting change when we need to start being that change ourselves. For example, I see so many humanitarian and development leaders waiting for their organizations to tell them to stop working long hours or to start taking care of themselves. This may happen

and maybe your organization has told you that. But from my experience, your organization may say this, but what usually happens around you might be quite different. And so you keep waiting for someone else to save you, to make that change you want to see rather than stepping up and making it yourself.

So why not create that change?

Why not start the conversation with those around you on how you can do what is within your control to start a movement? For example to say that it is okay to not be available all the time. That you sometimes need to be able to not be available so that you can do focused work. To give yourself permission, to be able to say no to extra work and not work long hours all the time. You may think. I don't have the authority or I might receive a warning from my supervisor, or I might get in trouble if I do this, or if I push back or if I do something differently from everyone else. But is that really true? And if your organization, like most right now,

in the humanitarian and development sector wants to create this culture of protecting your time and creating a culture of wellbeing, if they're really serious about that and that is the future we're headed towards then they are essentially giving you permission to say no and to take care of yourself. But they can't force you to do that.

You have to start.

And if you feel uncomfortable being alone with this, essentially being the leader, being the first, then why not recruit others to do it with you? By being that change you seek, we can encourage others to make change as well. You have that ability, no matter what or where you are in the organization.

You just need to make the decision to start doing it and bring others along with you. So, what change are you waiting for and how might you do one thing this week to start making that change? All right, until next week on Monday, learn how your high-performance and drive to succeed may actually be causing you to be less productive and make less of an impact.

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.