How Talking Too Much Impacts Your Ability to Lead Effectively as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader

Ever wondered if you are talking too much - to the point that it is hurting your team's development?

In today’s episode, we dive deep into the fine line between helpful and unhelpful communication. As a leader, you might find yourself questioning whether you’re truly adding value or simply adding noise.

This episode will help you tackle a common issue many leaders face: over-talking and its impact on team dynamics. Learn how to strike the right balance in your communication to foster better relationships and empower your team more effectively.

By tuning in for this 12 minute episode, you'll discover how to:

• Identify when your input is truly beneficial and when it might be counterproductive.
• Avoid common pitfalls of over-talking and its impact on your team’s autonomy.
• Enhance your leadership by understanding and managing your motives behind speaking.

Click play now to master the art of impactful communication and elevate your leadership game!

WHAT IS YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE?

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.

TRANSCRIPT:

Find out the difference between helpful and unhelpful talking. And when your talking may be making things worse on today's 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 my aspiring modern humanitarian and development leader. I hope you're having a wonderful week. Today's quick quote is by the Dalai Lama and it is: "when you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new." And for those of you not listening, I'm going to repeat that.

So the quote is "when you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new." Now, if you listened to Monday's episode, I talk about the power of using silence and listening and a few techniques on how you can be a better listener.

I think this is something that all of us do as a leader, maybe even as a parent or as a friend or as a colleague. I think all of us have our moments where we do what would be considered unhelpful talking or unhelpful sharing. Sometimes talking can be very helpful as a leader.

It's important to be able to communicate in certain ways. But when is it too much? And at what point are we just creating dependency or actually hurting our team more than helping our team? So I want to distinguish the difference. And I think it will really help you understand how to have that balance more between when to talk and when to add to the conversation and when to maybe hold back. Because I don't think it's something that's taught very often.

And yet, it's something that is so powerful to understand about ourselves, because it can really help you be a better communicator, strengthen the relationship with others and be able to empower others in a way that we can't when we are over-talking. So just a really quick analogy before we go on. I like to think of this, as when you walk into somebody's house and maybe their house is what we would call over decorated.

So there are things everywhere, like maybe they collect pigs or elephants or dogs and they're, they're just everywhere, all over the shelves, on the floor. Maybe they like plants and you feel like you're in the Amazon jungle whenever you go and visit them. Maybe you feel like you're on one of those episodes of hoarders?

I don't know if you've seen that reality show, but, usually those people are suffering from some kind of mental illness, it's a very extreme version of what I'm talking about, but. The idea is that they go overboard. They, they do a lot of over decorating and it's almost too much. So decorating is valuable or it's helpful to an extent, but over decorating can be counter-productive because it clutters your house, it doesn't look as nice, and in my opinion, when you have a cluttered space, you have a cluttered mind as well. But. Just to say that in the same way that sometimes we might over decorate something. I think sometimes we also might overshare or over talk.

There are times where talking is really helpful and adds to the conversation. And there are times when it doesn't. So we're going to talk about what are those times. As a leader specifically. So the times where leaders add value when we share, or we are talking is when we're explaining something, we're sharing information or we're directing.

Sometimes we need to put on our manager hat and, and actually tell someone what to do or approve something. Or maybe we're teaching, or it could be also that we are asking questions when we're talking and that could be some form of perhaps coaching.

So those are times where it's usually more helpful. Uh, to an extent. Even when we're sharing information, we can share too much or go on and on and on and, and maybe make it not as helpful.

But where I see leaders oversharing in a way that's not helpful to their team is when for example, they want to add something to an idea or what a team member has already said. They feel that they need to tell their team what to do even if the team already knows how to do something. And when they talk a lot more than they listen. Those are indicator that you as a leader are trying to get another need met through your team. And what I mean by that is when we do a necessary talking. for example, when we add an idea on top of what is already said, a lot of times we're probably thinking that we're adding value to that idea. But really we're taking away the idea from the other person and making it ours. And so this is something we need to be very cautious about because it can be very disempowering. And of course, if your team already knows what to do and we're telling them what to do, that's not very helpful. And when we talk more than we listen, also not very helpful.

What I found is that these kinds of things we can usually identify in ourselves by understanding when we feel this desire to share or talk as a leader really questioning our feeling behind that and our motive behind that. So the feeling can be really a good indicator of are we sharing to add value or are we oversharing and taking away value?

And I'll give you an example. So let's say that your team member says something like gives an idea and you think it a great idea and you think it would be even better if you just changed it a little bit by offering something.

If you're feeling at that point anxious or uncomfortable or impatient to share, and to immediately add your perspective on top of theirs, that is probably an indicator that, that sharing is coming from a place of needing to look like a better leader. When we overshare it's because we want to justify our role as a leader, we want to justify our value. We do that by sometimes adding our own ideas on top of others. Another way that this might show up for you is if your team member is talking and all you can think about is what you want to say. And you're feeling impatient or anxious, or you want to interrupt them. That is probably also coming from a feeling of wanting to add value and wanting to be seen as a valuable leader. And there's nothing wrong with these things.

I think this our human nature that we have certain needs that we want met. However, we have to ask ourselves, when is this helpful? And when is it not? And what happens is the more primitive part of our brain takes over and tries to justify our position.

It goes back to the need to belong, as a tribe or when we were in a more tribal society, perhaps where we need to belong and we need to justify our role as a leader. And sometimes we do that without even knowing it by interrupting our team, by giving ideas that are on top of theirs, that then become ours, or by talking too much.

But once again, one of the best indicators of whether you're doing that or not is just noticing how you're feeling when you want to share something or when you're talking. And then also being curious about, why do I want to share this or say this right now? Is it to prove myself in some way, or is it to actually genuinely add value to the conversation? Is it coming from proving my value or is it coming from giving value?

So the more you become aware of how you're feeling when you want to talk and the more you become aware of the motive behind why you want to talk. It can be very informative in terms of when is it helpful and when is it not. So try it today, pick a conversation with a colleague and notice how you feel when you want to talk and be curious about your motives.

Are you feeling impatient? Are you feeling that you have to get this idea out in order to add value to the conversation? Why do you feel the need to add that value? Is it coming from a place of genuinely wanting to help or is it coming from a place of wanting to prove your role? The more honest we can be with ourselves about this, the more powerful it can be in terms of deciding when we want to talk

and when we don't. And that means we can become even better leaders.

And once again, If you want tips on how to be a better listener, go check out Monday's episode. All right. 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.