The Number One Way to Sabotage Your Leadership Growth as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader

Do you ever catch yourself thinking, “I already know this”? What if that exact thought is quietly sabotaging your leadership growth?

This episode explores one of the most damaging yet subtle mindsets that can derail even the most well-intentioned leaders: the assumption that you’ve already mastered the basics. Whether you’re managing a team, running a project, or simply trying to grow as a professional, ignoring the fundamentals could be costing you clarity, impact, and respect.

In this episode you'll discover:

• Why curiosity is more than just a trait—it’s a leadership superpower.
• Learn how to overcome the mental trap of “I already know that” to unlock deeper listening, more effective feedback, and real-time growth.
• Understand the importance of revisiting foundational skills like listening and questioning—especially if you think you’ve already got them mastered.

Listen now to uncover how embracing curiosity and relearning the basics can elevate your leadership to the next level.

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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

Learn how the moment you think I already know, this is the exact moment that you stop growing as a leader 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. Just as a reminder, this podcast helps you as a NGO leader to [00:01:00] get out of emergency response mode and start leading with calm, clarity and confidence as a modern leader.

So let's get started, shall we? In this episode, you're gonna discover how the "I already know that" mindset is silently holding you back as a leader. Why curiosity isn't optional, but is a leadership superpower. And why modern leaders revisit the basics, not because they forget them, but because they want to master them.

I've been thinking about mindsets, which can really help you or hurt you as a leader. And this is one of the big ones. It is when you tell yourself "I already know that", and I even find myself doing this occasionally when I attend a webinar or I'm listening to a podcast and I start to get the [00:02:00] idea that this is information that I've heard before or that I already know, or this is very simple.

It's a waste of time. These are the types of thoughts that come from the belief "I already know this". When you think " I already know this", then you close yourself off from being even more curious about what you still may not know. So it's one of the least helpful thoughts we can have when we are attending a course or when we are

engaging with someone in conversation is assuming we already know what they are telling us. An example that I see sometimes with students who take my course "becoming the modern humanitarian and development leader" are leaders who think something like listening as a skill is something [00:03:00] that I already know how to do.

And I see a pattern between the people who tell themselves this being the ones that usually are not very good at listening. So even though they say, "I know how to listen", they ended up being the ones that are usually the poor listeners. And so there's a disconnect, right? They think it's so simple to listen.

That they can do it, no problem. And yet when they tell themselves that it closes their brain down from learning more or from being curious of if they're already doing it well or they're actually putting into action what they supposedly know. Another example that maybe you've experienced is when you maybe shut down to feedback that you hear from someone else that you don't even wanna be curious about it.

And [00:04:00] it's really a protective mechanism, right? It's a way of protecting ourselves from hearing something that might make us feel badly about ourselves. That we just reject the feedback altogether rather than being curious about how any part of that feedback might actually be true in some way.

If instead of thinking, I already know what I'm good at and I already know what I'm not good at, thinking about how might this feedback actually have some truth to it? What do I not know here about myself that this person is now sharing with me?

Not to beat yourself up or judge yourself about it, but just to take ownership and responsibility on whatever part I played in creating this feedback now that this person is giving me.

Or maybe you avoid practicing something [00:05:00] which actually prevents you from mastering it.

So rather than saying, " I already know how to listen" or "I already know how to do the skillset", being open to where am I missing something? How might I actually improve? And you might miss something that you really didn't know, for example, a different way of listening that maybe you had not considered before.

Just because you know something does not mean that you are actually practicing it or that you have mastered it, or even that you're good at it. So back to the listening example, when you think that you may know how to listen. And you shut yourself off from learning additional skills in how to listen or looking at yourself on how maybe I could be a better listener, maybe I could try this new skill.

It is like knowing that we should eat healthy. [00:06:00] Doesn't mean that we are actually eating healthy, right? there's not always a direct link between what we know and what we practice. And so a helpful question or a quality question that you might ask yourself is, what is something new I can learn from this?

Or what am I not seeing Because I think I already know this? And this type of question can open yourself up. , A few episodes back We talked about how powerful or quality questions can help us become more creative and more open and curious to new ideas. And this type of question will allow you to do just that, rather than shutting yourself down because you're telling yourself, I already know.

You can open up to what you don't know. So sometimes I listen to other [00:07:00] leadership or self-help podcasts. I am a nerd in that way. I just love spending time. Listening to these things, I could spend hours doing that even on my vacation and I can listen back to the same episode more than once and pick up something new every time.

Sometimes we think, oh, I listened to this episode. I don't need to listen to it again. I already know it. But re-listening to it, you might realize there's something actually that you had not heard before and that you can now try and apply. Or a different perspective that you had not realized when you listen to it the first time.

As we go through our day, our week, our months, we become a different person. We have new experiences and so when we listen back on something or reread a book or take a training [00:08:00] again, we might pick up on different things 'cause of these new experiences we've had, or maybe because we're listening better to the episode or whatever it is.

Our brains tend to focus on certain things when we listen to something, and by, revisiting things that we think we already know, we can actually come to master them even more or get even better and pick up on things that we hadn't noticed before.

Like we said, knowledge does not mean practice. When I consume information, I try to make sure that it's information that I actually want to use in this time, in this moment, and then I actually practice it because otherwise, if we're just listening to podcasts and we're just taking courses and we're not applying these things, then what's the point?

We might have more knowledge, but it's not translating into action. As a [00:09:00] modern leader, you should be curious about what you don't know and open to understanding more about what we don't know or about what you don't know. So when you approach leadership from this angle, you become more willing to understand other perspectives and ideas and what you don't know about them.

And you gain more from each interaction and each training opportunity because you look for what you don't know, rather than focusing on what you already do. And you become a better coach because you are asking questions from a place of curiosity and being open to hearing what you don't know what your team is telling you, rather than assuming that you already know the story.

You already know what they're telling you. You don't need to listen.

Maybe even with what I'm sharing right [00:10:00] now, maybe you can, this is very meta, but you can say, I already know this to this episode that I'm sharing with you right now.

And when you tell yourself that, I already know this, it just makes this seem like a waste of time, resources, and I close down. I close down to any way that maybe I am not practicing this fully. So I want you to be curious and rather than telling yourself I already know this, I want you to ask yourself what the modern leader would ask, which is, what can I learn from this?

What do I not know here? What have not, I not heard or applied yet from what I'm hearing in this training, in this meeting from my team, this opens us up to exploration, inspiration, and new [00:11:00] ways of thinking?

So remember, as a modern leader, and when we think of the leaders that you admire, and when you think of the leaders that you admire.

Stephen Covey, the author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People he calls sharpening the Saw. in other words, these leaders that we admire revisit the basics regularly.

Basics meaning the foundationals, how to listen, how to ask better questions, how to better understand my team and communicate with them on a deeper level. Things that maybe you feel like you already know, but by having this approach and revisiting these things, reviewing these things, and being open to what you don't know

you will become more like these leaders that you admire in sharpening your saw or going back [00:12:00] to what we think we know, but what how we actually don't. And likely when you do that, you will see something new that you have not before. That can help you become even better as a leader.

Alright, 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 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 [00:13:00] 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.