The Power of Silence as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader

Do you ever feel the urge to fill every silence in a conversation—especially as a leader?

In this episode, you’ll learn why embracing silence is one of the most overlooked communication tools in humanitarian and development leadership—and how it can lead to deeper connection, better understanding, and more empowered teams.

In this episode you'll discover:

• How a simple pause can uncover hidden insights and encourage others to speak more openly.
• Discover how silence helps introverted team members and multilingual colleagues feel heard and respected.
• Shift your focus from talking to understanding—and unlock stronger leadership through better listening.

Press play to discover how practicing silence can dramatically enhance your leadership presence and your team’s trust in you.

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.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, my aspiring modern humanitarian development leaders. I hope you're having a wonderful week. And this is another podcast episode which I'm calling MVP episode from my previous podcast, the Aid for Aid Workers Leadership Podcast. And in it you're going to learn how sometimes it is a lot more valuable to listen over talking and why that is.

And this has been one of my most popular episodes for that particular podcast, which is why I'm sharing it with you today. And once again, even if you've already heard this, probably doesn't hurt to re-listen. All right. I'll leave you to it.

Torrey: Welcome to the Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader podcast. The podcast helping humanitarian and development supervisors make a greater [00:01:00] 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 aid worker friends. I hope you're having a great week.

So that was a long pause. Were you wondering where I went? Did that make you feel uncomfortable? Well, it's so interesting how many of us are very uncomfortable with allowing silence during a conversation. And what I mean by silence is really pausing and [00:02:00] allow nothing, as I teach my students, silence is a really powerful way to communicate, whether in coaching or everyday conversation.

So what, how do you communicate without talking? Well, it's totally possible. When we don't allow silence, when we want to fill in all the pauses with our own words, we are actually missing out. So allowing silence can be very powerful, and I'm going to explain to you more about that after I allow silence for a really quick announcement.

Hey, part of becoming a better leader is helping others become better leaders too. If you like today's episode, and I know you did, please share it with your friends and networks in the aid world so we all can [00:03:00] grow together people. It's a simple and effective way to broaden your impact. Thanks so much.

And now let's get back to the show.

So, as I was saying, allowing silence can be very powerful. So for one thing, it teaches us that we don't always have to fill in the gaps. Sometimes by you being silent, the other person will reveal more about a situation or a problem than they would have if you had filled the silence. With your own talking.

And so what I mean by this is when someone is talking to you and then they stop talking and our inclination is to want to fill that gap, to want to be the next one to talk to, jump into the conversation. But what I'm advocating for is for you to try to just be [00:04:00] silent. So. Sometimes allowing silence also gives space to the person we are talking to, to be able to think.

So I don't know about you all, but I am an introvert and I remember growing up it was really difficult being around other, more extroverted people. And whenever we had a meeting together, you know, me as an introvert, it takes me longer to kind of collect my thoughts so that I can be. More prepared for what I wanna share and.

Extroverts seem to like always have exactly what they wanna say on the top of their mind. And so if you're talking to an introvert, it's actually really they'll be very grateful for you to slow down the conversation or I. Allow for silence for them to be able to think through what they wanna say.

And in our sector, in the [00:05:00] humanitarian and international development space, it's also valuable in terms of, you know, some of the people that we work with, the languages that we speak are different. You might be communicating in English. And maybe English is their second or third language. And so they also need more time to be able to think through what they wanna say and the words they want to use.

So allowing silence in that case too is also very refreshing. No, I have to admit that I also struggle with this myself, and that is, for one thing, it's not natural to me. I have to remind myself to take a pause and allow space every so often in the conversation, and it doesn't always feel comfortable because I, I don't know.

I guess [00:06:00] I. I don't know. It's very interesting why we're not comfortable with silence, but when I do allow that gap, when I do allow that pause, I find that I learned so much more than I would've if I had used my own words to fill it. And sometimes that silence reveals something that I would not have known.

So sometimes I'll be talking with someone and you know, they're telling me something and they stop and I just allow them, you know, I just allow the silence. I allow a pause in the conversation. And what I find is that they'll keep going and sometimes they'll reveal things that. I would not have found out if I had jumped in the conversation myself and, you know, used my own words to start talking.

So sometimes allowing that silence actually you'll bring [00:07:00] up even more and get more depth in the conversation by giving that space for the, the other person to be able to, to speak more. Sometimes also my team members, you know, even myself, I know when I'm being coached by someone, you know, whenever I have a coaching session or someone's coaching me, or I remember supervisors in the past, whenever they.

Gave space, they paused and they really, you know, they didn't feel, I didn't feel as rushed a conversation. I also appreciated that a lot because I was able to collect my thoughts. I was able to stay on track better. I was able to express myself better. I didn't feel so rushed and I really appreciated that, you know, that them giving me that silence, that gap.

And also when I allow [00:08:00] silence, when I create a pause in the conversation, I find that I also am less focused about what I'm going to say and more focused on what the other person is going to say and being present with the moment and that gap and, and, and really understanding and being there in order to understand what.

Is being communicated to me, and that could be very powerful as well. So I challenge you to try silence, try pausing. So during a conversation this week when someone is talking to you after they pause or they seems like they finished speaking, leave silence for five seconds.

It is gonna feel like an eternity, but see what happens. And also be curious [00:09:00] not only about what happens, but. Be curious about their side and your side. Like how do you feel while you're being silent? After you're silent? You know, after they break the silence or you break the silence. If they continue not to say anything after five seconds, you know, you can keep, you can, you can talk.

But. I encourage you to just try to, to keep that pause and see what happens and see what comes up for you. See if you feel uncomfortable with it or not. See if they seem to feel uncomfortable with it or not. There's nothing bad about silence, but for some reason sometimes it makes us feel uncomfortable, and yet when we are able to do it and when we are able to use it appropriately, it can be very powerful and very telling and.

I really encourage you to try this exercise this week and what, you know, also observe [00:10:00] what are some of the things that might come up or might be said that would not have been said otherwise. And if you want to share that with me, your feel free to respond to the weekly email. If you receive that, you can just hit reply and tell me about it.

Or you can send me an email and you can find my email on the website. Aid for aid workers.com. So tune in for next week's episode when Chen Kare and I talk about how to create a sense of team. When you are all in different countries and you're basically doing a lot of remote or virtual meetings, you know, a lot of us now we have team members all over because of covid, maybe you're not in the office or maybe some of you are in the field or in different offices or different time zones, [00:11:00] so.

Especially if your team has a, a new member or you are new to the team, or you know, multiple people are new, or even if you're not, how do you create or continue to create a sense of team in this kind of situation? We're gonna talk all about that next week, so tune in then. Alright. Until then, keep broadening your impact.

Bye for now.

Are you the type of leader that tells others what to do or to let them figure it out for themselves? Understanding your leadership style is a 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.[00:12:00]

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.