How to Lead Across Cultures Without Losing Your Impact (2026 Modern NGO Guide)

Have you ever stayed silent in a meeting—not because you disagreed, but because “that’s just how things are done” in your organization or culture?

If you’ve ever struggled between honoring your cultural norms and wanting to lead in a more empowering, modern way, this episode will help you understand why cultural expectations can both support and limit your leadership—and how you can navigate them intentionally to create stronger, more resilient teams.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How cultural norms shape your leadership style—and when they might be holding you or your team back.
• Why balancing hierarchy with empowerment leads to healthier, more effective teams.
• Practical ways to adapt your leadership to your cultural context without losing your authenticity or impact.

Press play now to learn how to lead confidently across cultures and create a team culture where people can thrive.

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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:

How to Lead Across Cultures: When Your Leadership Style Doesn’t Match the Norm

[00:00:00] How might a misconception of culture prevent you from leading the way you want? Find out 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 NGO leader. I hope you're having a wonderful week. Have you ever stopped yourself from challenging your boss? Not because you were [00:01:00] wrong, but because it's just not how things are done in your country or organization? Or maybe as a leader you've been told, "In our culture, the boss or the leader, gives the orders?" Culture shapes how we lead and how we follow, and sometimes in ways that we don't even realize. But what if culture could evolve, could change? What if instead of being something that limits us, it could be something that we help shape to encourage our teams to thrive?

That's what we're gonna explore today. How to lead across cultures without losing your authenticity or your impact. So in this episode, you'll discover how culture shapes your leadership and when to challenge cultural norms that limit growth, why empowering your team doesn't have to mean rejecting hierarchy altogether and [00:02:00] how to adopt your leadership to serve both your team and your organizational culture without losing who you are and what you wanna achieve.

Alright, shall we get started? One of the rising trends in our sector is becoming more aware of our cultural differences and even celebrating them, but also recognizing the influence and the impact that certain cultures have had on others with colonialism, with the influence of the global north on the global south, for example.

That's a very important conversation. We're rethinking donor dynamics, power and localization. But when it comes to leadership, I see many NGO leaders swinging to the opposite extreme, rejecting certain approaches entirely because they seem too [00:03:00] outside of our own culture. And in reality, it's really not about one culture being right or wrong.

It's about being intentional about choosing which parts of our culture serve us and which ones may be holding us back. So when leaders take my course, "Becoming the Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader", one of the most common questions that I get is, What if my culture is different? When they're learning about a Coach Approach Leadership Style, or how to use coaching to empower those around them, which is one of the two leadership styles that I teach, they ask, what if my culture is more managerial? In other words, more one of telling. They tell me, in my culture, the leader is supposed to have the answers and it's not appropriate for subordinates to question their [00:04:00] manager. And it's not appropriate for me not to tell my team what to do to or to not tell my team what to do, and I get it.

Many of us come from hierarchical to context where leadership is top down and unquestioned. But I always remind them that culture isn't fixed and culture is constantly changing, especially now inside NGOs, and it's something that needs to be changed where teams are already diverse and global. So instead of saying, this won't work in my culture, what if we asked which parts of my culture are helping me lead effectively, and which parts might be holding me or my team back, and how can I achieve more of a balance rather than being one type, all hierarchical or all [00:05:00] coaching or collaborative? That's where real leadership begins, in reflection and in choice.

So I have this really great example that I wanna share with you today. One of the most striking examples of cultural adaptation and leadership comes from Korean Air. So years ago, Korean Air had a very high rate or a higher rate of accidents compared to other carriers, and when investigators looked deeper, they discovered it wasn't a technical issue.

It was a cultural issue. So in Korean culture, at that time especially, hierarchy and respect for elders was deeply valued. And that meant that when you had a senior pilot with a co-pilot, the copilot often hesitated to correct or question the senior pilot, [00:06:00] even in life or death situations. So because of this, the airline just made a bold decision.

They retrained their pilots not in flying, but in communication and in leadership, and they encouraged the junior pilots, the co-pilots, to speak up even if they disagreed with authority when safety required it. And what was the result? Their accidents dropped dramatically. And that's the power of rethinking cultural norms.

Not rejecting them entirely, but balancing them with new ways of leading that serve the mission better. So whether you work in a headquarter office or in a country program, you're in part of multiple cultures together. National, organizational, even team culture, and each of those can either support or hurt your impact.

There's a time which is [00:07:00] needed, and I discuss very thoroughly in my course, when do we use top down leadership? For example, during a crisis, when quick decisions matter versus when do we use more empowering or collaborative leadership? When you want innovation, ownership, and creativity, for example. Neither one is good or bad.

What matters is the balance and the courage to question whether the way we've always done it is still serving your purpose. So culture doesn't have to be your excuse. It can actually be your opportunity. The modern leader doesn't fight culture. They actually shape it. They ask, what kind of culture do I want to create for my team, and what kind of culture will help us make the greatest impact?

Leadership isn't about fitting into the culture around you. It's about leading the [00:08:00] culture forward. So here's your challenge for this week. Think of one behavior in your team that's "just the way we do things", and ask yourself, is this helping us or holding us back? And if you realize that it's not serving you, ask, what small shift could I make to start leading that culture forward?

If this episode made you think differently about leadership and culture. Please share it with another NGO leader who's ready to lead the change. Not just within the project, but within people. Because culture doesn't define you, you define culture. 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 [00:09:00] 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.