How a Cooking Show Exposed the Secret to Modern Leadership Success

Are you unknowingly using a leadership style that’s demotivating your team—even when you think you’re being helpful?

In today’s episode, we explore how your default leadership approach might be limiting your team’s potential. If you're an NGO leader trying to shift out of emergency mode and into long-term, impactful leadership, this episode will help you understand the often overlooked balance between control and autonomy—and why it matters more than ever. And I demonstrate it through my latest favorite cooking show.

In this episode you'll discover:

• Learn the difference between directive and people-centered leadership styles and when to use each one effectively
• Discover how a cooking competition (yes, really) perfectly illustrates the consequences of poor leadership balance
• Gain actionable insight on how to lead with clarity, confidence, and calm—without micromanaging or disappearing

Tune in now to learn how to balance your leadership style and finally unlock your team’s full potential as a modern NGO leader.

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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 EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Learn how your leadership style may be negatively impacting your team's performance in 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 aspiring modern leader. I hope you're having a wonderful week, and I have a really exciting episode today. It's on one of my favorite topics, which is the impact of our leadership style, how much impact that can have on our team.

It can be the difference between motivating and [00:01:00] totally demotivating our team. So as a reminder, this podcast helps you as a NGO leader get out of emergency response mode and start leading with calm, clarity and confidence as a modern leader. Let's get started, shall we?

In today's episode, you're going to discover the impact different leadership styles can have on your team.

The two primary ways of leading and the advantages and disadvantages of both, and how to lead to gain calm, clarity and confidence as a modern leader. So I have this new show that I am watching right now, which, if you don't know, I love cooking shows, but not the types of cooking shows which show you how to do different recipes.

I like the cooking show competitions, [00:02:00] so for example, master Chef, top Chef, and recently I ran out of episodes. So I had to look for a new show and I found a show, which I feel like demonstrates what I'm going to talk about today. So and the show is called "Yes Chef," and it has two master chefs on it, one of them being Martha Stewart, who you are probably familiar with.

She is a global icon when it comes to housekeeping and cooking and so on. In, "yes, chef" they have a group of chefs which they've invited on the show who are there as very strong cooks, but are also there because they have some kind of, basically, as they put it on the show, they are in their own way of becoming a better chef.

And so they have the technical skills. They have the [00:03:00] culinary abilities. They're fine there. But the problem is that they are not good leaders. They are not good at working with other people. They have tempers. They are perfectionists. In high stress situations, they don't do very well.

They yell at people, they micromanage these types of tendencies. And so the idea is the way the show is designed is to actually help them become more aware of these things and to change them. And if they change them, they are more rewarded. And they're able to advance to higher levels in the show. So I just find it really fascinating in terms of a study of leadership.

So I wanna give you an example from the show, which I thought really illustrated what I'm gonna share with you today. So basically the first show, they divided the group into three. So three groups of chefs. The [00:04:00] chefs had already submitted menus that they were going to make for Martha Stewart and the other chef.

And Martha Stewart and the other chef had already selected the top three menus, and that's how they decided who was going to lead each group. So then they give them the option do you want to choose and have your group, your team, do your menu, the one that you submitted and that we said is very good, or do you want your team to do the dishes that they come up with themselves?

And so each leader of each group had this option. Do you want to go with your menu that you've already are, submitted and that they've approved and they said is great. But also might not be so familiar to your other team members because they're gonna be the ones that have to cook it. Or do you want to allow your team to come up with their [00:05:00] own dishes?

Really interesting, right? So each chef, each leader of each team, chose to do something differently. So one chef decided that he was going to do his menu, so that meant that his team also had to do his menu and they weren't necessarily familiar with all the different techniques and what he had in mind.

Because of that, he didn't have the time because they had a limited time to create this menu that he presented to them. And he actually ended up using most of that time to tell them what to do to micromanage them and to really make sure that they were doing these dishes the way that he thought they should be done.

Like it was his menu. He wanted it done a certain way, so he was telling everyone what to do, but then that meant he didn't [00:06:00] have enough time for his own dish. So because of that, he ended up losing, he actually ended up on the bottom. Because his dish didn't turn out so well, and neither did any of the team that he was micromanaging, none of the dishes turned out very well.

It was his vision, but they didn't know how to do it. They didn't have the skills, and so they just ultimately, they failed. The second leader chose for the team to come up with their own dishes. So rather than saying, you need to do my menu, they said, come up with your own dishes. And what happened there is this leader totally did the opposite approach, right?

Instead of micromanaging, they gave their team total independence. They allowed them to just do whatever they wanted. They said, I trust you. You all are master chefs. Just do your dishes right? And so what happened with that? And Martha Stewart had a wonderful quote, which she said,

" avoiding [00:07:00] micromanaging doesn't mean disappearing." And so what happened was this leader was so hands off and didn't give any guidance to the team, or didn't help them and see if they needed help that one person ended up struggling with her dish, even though it was her dish.

Her vision of that dish wasn't really working out the way she had wanted it, and she didn't ask for help. And so because the leader didn't check in and make sure everyone was on track, that dish failed. And so ultimately the team failed because of it. So it was like the opposite of micromanaging full independence, which actually ended up being too much.

And so they also failed as a team. The third leader chose to allow their team to make whatever dishes they wanted, right? So like the second one. But in this case, this person actually did check in with their team and make sure that they were on track, that they all had a [00:08:00] common vision, and that if they needed help, they could go to this person for help and they ended up being the one that won.

And so it wasn't this all or nothing approach to leadership that actually ended up being effective. It was, a balance allowing the team to do their own things, but also stepping in and checking in with them to see if they needed support. And also that they were all making sure they were all aligned with a common vision.

I found this such a great example of leadership in general and how it's very important to have this kind of a balanced way of leading as the modern leader does, right? There's no one right way of leading all the time. We should never be using one leadership style all of the time, it just doesn't work.

It's just not effective. [00:09:00] And it's actually better to have a variety ways of leading. A balance between different styles. But what I find is, and what may be true for you is that you might tend to use one style more than the other, right? You might be a little bit more of a micromanager, or you might be more of a hands off person.

And this is what I help you to do in my course, my leadership course, "becoming the modern humanitarian and development leader", is to identify, first of all, what style are you, but then how can I help you to have more of a balance between these two different leadership styles, which I have identified as the primary ways of leading a team.

So the two different leadership styles are one, is more directive or managerial. Not to the point necessarily of micromanaging, but being able [00:10:00] to advise or tell your team what to do. So that's one style. And this way of leading is useful in situations where there's a short deadline. It's, it is more of, let's say an emergency response way of leading, which there is a time and place for.

Or let's say there's a high risk scenario where if you fail, it's going to be high risk. In that scenario or situation, you wanna lead from this more managerial or directive style or when you have to show someone how to do something. I actually put teaching under this style as well.

Like teaching would be essentially telling someone what to do for the first time, hopefully the second time you don't have to tell them what to do. Maybe they can just show you. But teaching is a part of that style. So the advantage of that style, this more directive or managerial way of leading, is that you are able to [00:11:00] get things done more quickly that you are

able to do things in a way that you think is the right way or the way things should be done,

but the disadvantage of that style is that it's not as motivating a lot of times for people to be told what to do, especially if they're at a certain experience level. And like we saw in the chef example, sometimes it ends up failing completely because even though you tell me what to do, I still might not have your same skillset, and so I might not be able to do it in the same way, and maybe my solution or my way would be different from yours.

And I would feel more comfortable doing it my way, but you're telling me to do it your way. So that is one side, which is a more results focused, oriented type of [00:12:00] leadership. The second way, which , I encourage you to adopt as a modern leader, is to become more people centered in your approach to leadership.

So this way of leading is helpful in situations where team has the knowledge or the experience they know what to do, or they are closer to the problem. So they're better placed to give ideas on how to solve it. But they might need your guidance or your validation in order to take action.

So the advantage in this style, this more people-centered approach or coach approach, leadership style, as I call it in the course, is that you are naturally building a stronger, more proactive team. And that means that it also frees up your time and your focus for bigger picture things, right?

Like the leader and the chef [00:13:00] example. We don't wanna go to the extreme where we just completely don't engage with our team. The coach approach is a style where we are checking in with the team to make sure that they have support they need to move forward. And then it aligns with the vision of the team, but you are also not telling them what to do or directing.

So that means that, because you don't have to spend your time micromanaging or spend your time telling your team what to do, you have time to focus on your own dish, right? On your bigger picture activities that ideally you would be focusing on as a modern leader or as a NGO leader. So that's the difference, right?

Like I said, I think that there's no one right way of leading all the time, but what I find is that you might have a tendency to use more of the one style versus the [00:14:00] other. And it's how do you find this balance between the two? And I find that, for a modern NGO leader, it's better to try to move toward this more people focused leadership style, which will benefit you and benefit your team then to go more toward the directive or the style you would use in emergency response situation. So once again, as a modern leader, you understand how to balance both styles and you allow your team the independence to do things their way, but you also check in and make sure that they are aligned with the bigger vision of the team. And if they need support, you provide it and step in with your managerial hat. You have to put on your managerial hat when you need to make a quick decision or tell them what to do or just move forward. [00:15:00] So what is your default leadership style? Do you know? Which of these two styles do you think you use more than the other?

And if you have not yet, the way you can determine that is by taking my leadership style quiz which is in the show notes. You can find in the show notes the link to the quiz aid for aid workers.com/quiz. And by taking that quiz, it will help you determine are you more of a directive or managerial style leader, or are you more of a people centered or coach approach style leader? And you can think about how might you balance this more? Alright, so have a great week and 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 [00:16:00] 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.

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.