3 Practical Ways to Shift Power to Your Team, Partners and Community in Your Role as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader

Have you ever considered how much power you truly hold in your humanitarian or development work—and how it might be unknowingly limiting those around you?

We talk about shifting power and creating more equitable workplaces, but knowing what you can do as an individual to do this is not often discussed.  This episode explores the subtle ways you may be unintentionally taking power away from others and how to shift that dynamic to foster more inclusive and effective teams.

By tuning in, you’ll discover:

• Practical insights into recognizing the power dynamics at play in your work environment.
• Proven strategies for empowering your team, partners, and communities.
• The transformative impact of listening more and speaking less on your leadership effectiveness.

Ready to amplify your leadership impact? Hit play on this episode and start shifting power to greater inclusion and equality.

Resources Mentioned:

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

Fifty Shades of Aid Facebook Group

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:

In this episode, you'll learn how you may be unknowingly taking power and opportunities away from those around you and three ways you can overcome it.

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 and humanitarian development leaders. Welcome to the podcast. So today you're going to discover what shifting power actually means. We talk about a lot, but what does that actually mean? And what does it look like in practice in the humanitarian and development context? Common ways that you may be unknowingly taking power away from others. And three ways that you can empower those around you, including your team, partners, government, and community so they can become more confident and thrive and their own way of doing things and you can sit back and be happy to have made a bigger impact.

So this episode was inspired by the 50 shades of aid humanitarian book club. So shout out to my peeps here in Bangkok. We had a meeting last night to discuss our most recent book, which is called "Caste: the origins of our discontents" by Isabel Wilkerson. And in this book, Isabel talks about caste and she uses a lot of examples about the hierarchy in the United States in particular as defined by skin color. But it reminded me how much influence these same types of issues have had beyond just the United States, but have brought about this whole discussion globally in terms of decolonization of aid and localization and empowering those closest to the problem, communities and local organizations and giving more voices to those who aren't always heard and yet have sometimes the most important voice in the matter. And. So I thought it was appropriate to talk a little bit about what does this look like in practice?

In the book, one of the things that Isabel mentions is how those of us who have more power in this particular case, white people can shift more power to, people of color and those around them. But as leaders in the humanitarian and development sectors, we have different forms of power that we can also help equalize and shift to those around us.

Why? Because if we're going to give voices to the marginalized or the people who don't always speak up in meetings or don't always have the power to feel like they can, we need to be aware of first, how we might be blocking our team members in ways that we're not even aware of, because we are just operating in our own bubble of, of this is how it's always been and also be aware of all the different ways that we do have power, because regardless of whether you're listening to this as an ex-pat or as a national staff or as a staff of a U N, I N G O or whatever, you probably have some form of power that you can take more responsibility in terms of how you want to use it and when you want to use it and when you want to be more equitable.

So that's what we're going to talk about today. So I think it's good to point out the various ways that we have power because you might be thinking "I don't have any power. You kidding me? If I had more power, I would know it." But you might have more than you think you do.

So here are some of the ways in humanitarian development work that there are different power dynamics. And of course, one of the biggest is the international versus national staff, like, international ex-pat or people who come in from, let's say a higher level headquarters, regional office, whatever, coming into a local or a country program. And there's definitely often a power dynamic there of the international or as the consultant or as the technical advisor have the answers, you are the expert. And so defaulting to that person.

Also culturally this can be an issue because what I've seen and people who have taken my leadership course is that oftentimes there's this belief that, well, I, as a leader should have all the power and I need to have all the power because that's what my team expects. But when this belief is tested, it's seen that actually the basic need or desire for human autonomy. I often time outweighs this idea of the leader needing to have all the answers.

Even if you're from a very hierarchical culture you can find ways of helping those around you or empowering those around you, in a way that you both feel comfortable. Another one is gender or social norms. So sometimes one gender might be more dominant than the other,

Torrey: oftentimes men in certain contexts have more say than women, or maybe socially. An elderly person have more power in terms of just being older than a younger person. Also, you have these dynamics of ING O or UN versus local organizations or even versus the community where the UN or I NGO also comes in as kind of an authority of what needs to happen or what's supposed to happen and sometimes doesn't always understand how much they undermine the the voice of the more local organizations. And then finally being a supervisor in general, any time you have more of a formal power like that you also have a responsibility in terms of how you use it and when. So these are all various ways that we can have power and sometimes power can be good. Sometimes we might want to use our power to influence things because of a high risk situation or because there's only one right way of doing something and our team doesn't know it or because there's a reputational risk or whatever it is.

Sometimes there is a ness, there is a need for us to step in and, and use our power. However, what I've seen are sometimes leaders unknowingly block the progress or undermine those around them by doing things because they are so used to being things being done in a certain way, or they're not aware of how much power they have. So this might come in the form of, for example, dominating meetings, like the leader who always has the agenda is always the one leading the meeting is always the one coming up with ideas the leader not asking the team for ideas or if they do, they don't take any of them seriously. The leader or the person with more power thinking that they need to have all the answers or that they have all the answers and not being open to what others think or have to say.

The leader not being aware of how much they talk more than they listen. And then finally the leader not being aware of the power of even just your presence. And this was one thing that we discussed in the book club. Some people mentioned their own experience with this. The dynamics of just them being present change and being aware of that, how much influence we can have just by being present in the room. And it's not to say that that means that you have to leave the room or not be present. But how can you just be aware of that power more and help shift it?

So that is what I hope to help you with today is, you know, we talk a lot about this idea of shifting power, but what are some ways we can actually practically do that? So here are three ways that you can start giving more power to those around you. And I encourage you to think about how you can use these with your team with other colleagues with your local or implementing partners with the government, with the community. Just with those around you in general.

One is to, first of all, just understand the power that you have. Like I said, this is not just an ex-pat versus national staff dynamic. There are many dynamics when it comes to power. And recognizing the authority or the power that we have, whether it has been earned or not. Is an important first step in terms of being able to do something about it. And recognizing that the weight and the effect of your words are much different and more influential than maybe some others who speak up. And so being very aware, Have that power. Of when you say something and especially the higher up, you get an organization, but also like we've talked about all these other different dynamics, your words, and you might just be sharing something randomly off the top of your head, but they can really have an impact.

So just being more aware of the way you are communicating and how, the way that you speak and what you say has a bigger impact than those who are maybe lower on the hierarchy or, who don't have the power that you do.

So that's the first one, understand the power you have and just be observant of how the things that you say. Influence those around you. The second one is it sounds simple, but it can be so effective and that is listen more than you speak. So, if you find yourself as a leader, speaking more than you listen that is probably a sign that you are somewhat abusing your power.

So the more we listen, the more we understand and the more we see that actually our team or those around us have a good understanding of how to solve a problem or how to move forward or have ideas. And so I challenge you as well to just observe how much you're listening versus how much you're speaking this week. And see if you can start to listen more and speak less. As a general rule, if you are able to do that, I think you will automatically start shifting power dynamics. Then the third one is asking your team to come up with solutions or asking them what they think. So, rather than you having to have all the answers or come up with ideas. And maybe you feel that you do this already, right?

Maybe you, you do ask your team for ideas, but also I want you to be aware of how many times when your team suggests something, you add something on top of it. And what happens is when your team comes up with an idea, and then we add something on top of it, it becomes our idea. And so in a way, we are disempowering our team through hijacking, let's say their idea. So being aware of that, even if you already ask your team and if you don't, then this is a great first stop is just asking them, what do they think? But it's not just asking, what do you think it's actually listening and being open to taking their ideas.

Like I think we talked about I think it was a last week's episode how to encourage greater innovation? Well, this is a great way is just by asking and really taking the ideas of if those around you seriously. And like I said, being aware of how many times we feel the need to add something on to their ideas.

And a lot of times I think when we do that is because we're trying to prove that we also have value as a leader. But what if your value as the leader was not in the ideas that you provide, but in the ideas that you inspire?

So once again the more we can start to be aware of our own power dynamics and the various ways that can show up as a leader. There's so many ways that power shows up in our everyday work. And being aware of how can we distribute that power?

Because this is what the modern, humanitarian and development leader does. They understand the power they have and they understand how they can help shift that power to others so that we can help them to find their own way. And that is how we will make the most impact. So number one, understanding the power that you already have, number two, listening more than you speak sounds simple, but can be actually very challenging.

And then number three, asking your team for solutions or what they think and of course not then undoing them by coming up with something to add on to that, but just allowing their solutions to be.

All right. So once again, I will also leave a link in the show notes for the book "caste, the origins of our discontents". I do recommend it. It's an interesting read about what has led to the path that we're on right now, in the United States, but also globally. And some things that we can do at least to educate ourselves about it and what to do about it, but definitely a big part of that is shifting power, which is what we talked about today. All right 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 the 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.