How You May be Negatively Impacting Your Team's Performance as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader

How strongly do you believe in your team's performance?

You may say yes, but it is your actions which answer this question. If you give advice or tell others what to do, it is likely in part due to not trusting your team's own solutions or performance.

In this episode learn how to know if you are undermining your team's confidence, and discover:

• Why withholding advice can actually boost your team's confidence and problem-solving abilities.
• What it may mean if your team frequently asks for advice even when they don't need it
• Understand how to build a high-performing, self-reliant team that thrives on confidence and trust.

Listen now to discover how a shift in the belief in your team can make them higher performers!

WHAT IS YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE? 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:

Find out how giving advice impacts your team's confidence 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 humanitarian and development leader. I hope you're having a wonderful week. So today's quick quote is actually by myself. And the quote is: "if you need to tell someone what to do, it's because you don't believe they can do it on their own." So once again, "if you need to tell someone what to do, it's because you don't believe they can do it on their own." if you think about this, if you really believed that your team knew how to do something, would you tell them what to do? Probably not.

I mean, why would you? In that case, it would be like your accountant coming to you and you giving them advice on how to do your taxes. You would probably not tell them what to do because you assume they know what they are doing, that they already have the answers. And so when we feel the need to give someone advice or tell them what to do, it's probably because we believe we know more than them. That we have, or know more experience or we have more knowledge or information. And so we can give them a better solution than what they might find for themselves.

And sometimes that is applicable. Sometimes you do need to give advice to your team and use a more managerial approach and tell them what to do when they don't know what to do. They have no knowledge or experience to reference. But what I see is a lot of leaders giving advice when they don't need to.

And when their team probably does know what to do. And guess what that does? Well,

People know, your team will know when we don't believe that they can find their own way or their own solutions. When you're always telling them what to do and giving them advice, then they become dependent on you and they feel less confident in their own way. And they will keep coming to you for solutions. So this is a loss for you because it's going to take up a lot more of your time. You're also building a more, a dependent team, a lower performing team, and it's a loss for them because they don't grow and develop.

So when someone comes to you with a problem and asks for help, What I see is a lot of leaders automatically think that they need to tell the person what to do. Because they're asking for help, or they're asking for advice.

But oftentimes that person has already thought through their own solution. They already understand what they have to do, or have an idea of how they would solve the problem. And all they need from you is for you to ask them what they would do in this situation. How would they solve the problem? To listen to their idea and validate that it is a good one. That it is perfectly fine. Because probably this is not a knowledge or information problem. This is a confidence problem.

So what if, instead of assuming that they need your advice, you first ask them what they think and see what they say? It may surprise you that they have many ideas already. I see this all the time. When my students, in my course "Becoming the Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader." A lot of people think they don't have , solutions for themselves and then they come up with one after another, after another, because they are in the problem.

They've been thinking about it. And all they need from you is to validate them and build their confidence.

And if they have the experience and the knowledge, and they still tell you, they don't know what to do. It's probably because either they really don't know and they're stuck and they do need your help or they are not used to thinking for themselves and they don't have to, they have not had to up until now because you are doing the thinking for them by giving them advice.

So getting people to think for themselves is just breaking a habit and showing that you as a leader, want to help them grow and that you're going to do that by asking for their ideas.

And when you create the right environment, the right trusting environment, where they feel free to share, it will happen. I've seen it over and over again. When they see that you have their best interest in mind. That you want them to grow and that you value their ideas. And will support them if they fail, they will share with you.

So go into the next conversation that you have with your team member or the next time they come to you and they ask for advice, believing that the person in front of you is perfectly capable of solving their own problem or finding their own way. This is what we believe in coaching, and I've seen it work time and time again. All they need is your support in the form of validation. Okay, 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!