How to Maintain Trust During Uncertain Times as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader
Are you unknowingly eroding your team’s trust during times of crisis or uncertainty?
As an NGO leader facing unpredictable funding, policy shifts, and global instability, the way you communicate could be the difference between a resilient, loyal team—or total collapse in morale and performance.
In this episode you'll discover:
- 3 common myths about team communication during uncertainty—and how they quietly damage trust.
- Discover the one principle that keeps your team aligned and motivated even without “good” news.
- Get actionable steps to lead your team with empathy, clarity, and strength through any crisis.
Hit play to learn how to protect your team’s morale and trust—no matter how uncertain the situation gets.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
During uncertain times, it can be essential to take steps to maintain trust with your team, but are your actions building trust or avoiding it? Find out 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.
Hello, my modern NGO leader. I hope you're having a wonderful [00:01:00] week. And as you can see, if you're watching this on video on YouTube, I am now trying out something new. There's some uncertainty involved in this as well because I'm not used to being on video. But we're gonna go for it and see what happens.
So today we are going to talk about how to build trust with your team during uncertain times. And let's face it, there's a lot of uncertainty right now in the world not only in humanitarian and development, but in many spaces and sectors. But just to name a few we're talking about funding uncertainties and funding because of the cuts.
Political uncertainty and where certain things are happening around the world politically, economic uncertainty, environmental uncertainty, just so many ways that there's a lot of uncertain things happening, but that does [00:02:00] not mean that we have to lose trust with our team during this time.
And of course when we experience uncertainty, probably you, yourself are feeling anxious, maybe nervous, maybe fearful about what might be happening where things are going. And then of course, your team is going to feel the same way. And these things can lead to damaging trust if we do not handle it correctly with our team.
Low team morale, team turnover and low performance. I've seen it many times and situations, not just like in the present day, but in the past as well when there have been funding cuts when there have been changes to policies. If they're not handled well, it can really damage trust with your team.
So you're gonna discover today the consequences of not being [00:03:00] intentional about building trust with your team during uncertainty, three common myths about handling uncertainty that actually decrease trust instead of increasing it, and three ways to build trust during uncertainty in order to maintain team motivation and morale.
So let's get started, shall we? Alright, my own reference to this when I was a leader was when we had a policy change in my organization, which actually impacted people's pensions. And of course, when you're talking about impacting someone's benefits or their salary, there's gonna be a lot of emotion involved.
There's gonna be a lot of worry. There's gonna be some fear in these types of situations, if we don't handle them correctly or appropriately, are the kinds of situations where [00:04:00] people can fill gaps and start creating rumors and maybe even make things worse than they are because of those rumors which can lead to the high turnover and low morale.
So it is really important that we are intentional about how to build trust during this time. And so when this happened for me, I had some ideas in mind on how I wanted to communicate with the team. And that was really the main underlying theme that you're gonna see today in all of these ways of building trust is communication.
It's really the most important thing we can do is communicate. But what I see is a lot of people, the way they communicate or don't communicate is actually a lot of the problem and what causes even bigger problems [00:05:00] with trust. When we're talking about common myths about how to handle uncertainty, the first one that I have seen is that if there is no news, if I'm not hearing anything as a leader, any updates, I have no information to share, then there is nothing to share.
And the problem with this is, once again, if we do not communicate and fill the space or fill our team's ears with what is or is not happening, then they will start to create their own stories and narratives. And that is gossip which can be very damaging in the situation. And so even if there is no news, there is news that the news is that there is no news.
So I actually think, and in the [00:06:00] case of this policy change, when there were no updates, when we are still waiting for more information, I would communicate that. I would communicate that we are still waiting. We should be receiving something maybe next week, but right now there is no update.
But just telling them that will help in terms of them feeling like at least you're being transparent and as open as you can about what is happening. And of course when we do that, we build trust. So that's one common myth.
Number two, you think that if you don't have good news, then don't share it. I've seen this from other colleagues when we were trying to handle this particular situation, they were very uncomfortable with sharing any news that was considered bad news and thought that maybe it's better we just don't tell people about it, [00:07:00] and that we just wait for things to get better. The danger in that is if they find out in another way or if we're not trusting them, because essentially when we don't share bad news, it's because we don't trust our team as adults. We don't trust how they're gonna handle that bad news. And so we're essentially making the decision for them that they cannot handle it. So I actually think that it's better to create an environment where you can share bad news and have faith that your team will handle it in a mature way.
Now, if they don't, then that's another issue, right? You can address that. It's more of a performance issue perhaps, or, you can address how you need to, but the main thing is you don't want them to hear bad news once it's too late or [00:08:00] when you know from another source.
I remember there was a country manager in one of the organizations or the countries I worked in that decided they were not going to tell their team that they were leaving, and the way their team found out was through an ad in the newspaper. It. I think that this person felt that they told them directly that they couldn't handle the information right?
And so instead of that, they said, okay, I'm just not gonna tell my team anything until we find someone new. But in the meantime, they had to advertise and that advertisement was found by a team member, was shared with the team and it really damaged the credibility and the trust of this person.
It would have been better to be more transparent and open about, the hiring process, about what was happening. I think the team would've responded better to that. So when this happened, [00:09:00] it was quite damaging to their trust. So once again treating our team like adults, that they can handle it and allowing them to have this information even if we think it's bad.
Common myth number three is that giving people space to talk during these types of uncertain times will end up with strikes and labor unions and I don't know. I've seen that certain leaders I've worked with believe that if they allow their team the space or the time to be able to talk about something difficult, such as this policy change that impacts the pensions, if we allow that, that's going to make the staff come together and start striking and whatever.
Maybe that could happen, but I find that actually most of the time if we don't give them the space or the time to talk, then those things are actually even [00:10:00] more likely to happen. So I think it's actually healthier to bring everyone together and to say, okay, we want to hear from you. What are you feeling?
What are you thinking? And allowing people to just communicate and express themselves. A lot of times people just wanna be heard. They might even know that there's nothing that you can do about it, but at least you're giving them the opportunity to say how they're feeling and thinking and just allowing that they will feel more understood and they will feel more trusted and comforted.
And there's only so much we can do in these situations if there are funding cuts and so on, and there's a lot of uncertainty about who's gonna be around in a few months or whatever. But the main thing here is that we are not afraid of our team's reactions to bad news. And we give them the space to be able to talk about it and not in a way that you want [00:11:00] to have that be all that you talk about, but you do wanna create some kind of a space or time for them to be able to vent their frustrations.
So these are the three myths and the ways to overcome them. I hope this was helpful. Once again if there is no news, share even if there is nothing to share, . Number two, even if you have bad news, you should still share it.
And then number three, giving people space to talk. That if we have a specific time that we allow for venting and allowing to talk about how people are feeling and thinking, it will mean that they're able to feel more understood and seen and heard and trusted. But then of course, agreeing that, okay, now we're going to move forward. And this is something I think I heard from a leader. I think it was Michael Hyatt. I used to follow his podcast at the [00:12:00] time on leadership. And one of the things he said was, okay, I'm gonna listen to all of you, but then we're going to move forward.
We're gonna agree to just align with the decision that's been made, whether it's by headquarters or regional. Of course, if you can involve your team in whatever decision is impacting 'em, that is the best way. But at the end of the day, we just need to all agree to align behind this decision that's been made and move forward and know that we're gonna do the best we can to try to accommodate everyone and their needs.
That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please subscribe and until next time, keep evolving. Bye.
Are you the type of leader that tells others what to do or to let them figure it out for themselves? Understanding your leadership [00:13:00] 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.
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.