A Must Have Skill to Motivate Your Team to Greater Wellbeing as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader

What if a simple change in how you recognize your team can transform their mental health and motivation?

In today's fast-paced humanitarian and development sectors, leaders often overlook the profound impact of genuine recognition on their team’s mental wellbeing. As pressures mount, many struggle with feelings of undervaluation and burnout. This episode addresses a crucial yet often neglected strategy: authentic acknowledgment, which can significantly enhance your team's morale and engagement.

Listeners will discover how to:

• Implement impactful acknowledgment that fosters a deeper connection with team members.
• Differentiate between superficial praise and meaningful recognition, leading to a more motivated team.
• Enhance their leadership skills by using specific adjectives that resonate on a personal level, creating a more supportive work environment.

Tune in now to learn how you can make a lasting positive change in your team's mental health with just one simple shift in your leadership approach!

WHAT IS YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE?

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:

One simple change you can make today that will positively impact your team's mental health and wellbeing on 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. Happy mental health day. So in this episode, you're going to learn: how recognizing your team can improve their mental health, the differences between acknowledging versus praise or complementing and how acknowledging your team is more powerful than using compliments or praise which are usually what leaders are doing.

A lot of times think that we are recognizing our team and that should be enough. But I'm going to teach you today. a way to recognize your team that is more impactful and more personal and therefore more motivational, which of course influences the way we feel about ourselves and our mental health.

First of all receiving recognition can be very impactful to our mental health. We feel valued. We feel motivated. It can even be in some ways more motivating than the pay we take home at the end of the day. And I would argue, in our space humanitarian and international development, maybe even more so, because a lot of the reason that our team joined. Our organization is because they are motivated to help others.

Torrey: They're not just motivated by money. They're motivated in other ways as well. And so I remember a poor example of recognition or lack of recognition. I was working in a country where the leader was very disengaged and I remember them walking around the office and everyone was at their desks and working on whatever projects, budgets, whatever. And I remember this person saying, "oh, It's so great that you are working. And keep doing what you're doing. I have no idea what you're doing. But keep doing it."

That's what they actually said. "I have no idea what you're doing. But keep doing it." Okay.

Now you can imagine that, that was not the most motivational thing to hear. And didn't really enforce our confidence in this person either. Now I've also had one leader who recognized me and said that he knew that he could trust me. And that was quite an acknowledgement or recognition for me.

When you, you feel recognized or acknowledged you feel excited, you feel motivated, you feel inspired.

And so you can imagine this is why it's so important for our teams. And I would argue, even regardless of the cultural background. Some cultures might be more open with recognizing others. But you can still find a way to do it, which makes those around you comfortable in the context where you're working or living. Let's go over the differences between acknowledging and praising or complementing.

This is a difference which is very important because when it comes to recognition, acknowledging is more powerful than praise or complimenting. Praise or complimenting someone is usually very surface level. We are usually saying something about like a report they did, or maybe about something that they're wearing. Or maybe something that they have on their desk or you say something like good job or well done these kinds of little quotes can be motivating to someone. But they don't really say a lot to the person about what exactly you are recognizing in them. And then also when we're complimenting or praising, sometimes we do so over something that cannot be controlled by us or it's external to us.

So for example, if you praise your team members' report. They turn in a report and maybe the formatting is beautiful and it flows very nicely. The grammar is great and you say, "wow, this report is amazing." And yes, that still goes some way to make that person feel good and motivated, but what's even more powerful is when we acknowledge and the difference is, when we are acknowledging someone, we are acknowledging or recognizing who they are being or who they are as a person, as an individual in order to do that thing.

So in the case of the the report, it would be something like you are so thoughtful in creating this report. I see that you were very careful and detail oriented. I see how creative you were being.

A characteristic or quality in you that led to the outcome here, which is the well done report.

So you can see the difference that praising or complementing is something like, "well done. Good job. Yay." Kind of like a cheerleader. Whereas acknowledging is using an adjective and it's usually used in a sentence such as "you are blank". So "you are thoughtful. You are humble. You are respectful. You are creative. You are responsible. You are courageous.

When you did that presentation in front of a group of 50 people. You showed how courageous you are.

So you see the difference. Praising are complementing is very surface level. Is not very specific. And the person doesn't necessarily, it's not about them as a person and who they are being. Whereas acknowledging we are recognizing something in them that has led to this positive outcome. And when we do that, it makes people feel like this is who they are. Like that they are creative. They are independent. They are hardworking. They are detail oriented. And something about them as an individual, a unique individual that you are seeing in them and you are recognizing which is more impactful and powerful than just saying good job on that report. Or good job on the grammar". Right?

I share a whole list of adjectives with my students when they take my course "Becoming the Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader." We spend some time practicing acknowledgement and I share with them a whole list of adjectives that they can use to acknowledge others. And I challenge you to try this today. And you can do this with anyone.

It doesn't have to be someone who reports to you. It could be someone in another department. It could be a driver. It could be a family member or a friend. It doesn't matter. And of course the key behind recognizing is to be genuine.

It should be genuine. You should feel it from your heart, you should feel it authentically. If it's in authentic that will come through and you will actually lose trust.

So I challenge you to try this today.

Try acknowledging, not praising or complementing, but acknowledging. So when you see someone has done something, maybe you have a child. Maybe you have a daughter or a son and they bring home some art that they show you and you feel genuinely like, this is really nice. And so you say, "you are so creative. I can see how creative you are by this drawing that you did, or this painting that you did."

Or, at work recognizing someone who maybe went the extra mile to take out a colleague to lunch to make them feel more welcome, maybe this person was new, and you can acknowledge them for that. If that wasn't part of something that they had to do, it was something that they just did on their own. You could say something like, " you are so kind. I can tell that you really care about the wellbeing of this team member and making them feel welcome."

See who you can acknowledge today. And also notice when you do that how they react. Notice their facial expression. Notice their energy. How does it change when you acknowledge them? All right until next time, 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!