What are the leadership qualities needed to keep up with an evolving humanitarian and development sector?

This is the second part of a two part series in which Tosca Bruno-van Vijfeijken and I explore what types of qualities leaders need to meet the changes happening in the humanitarian and development sectors.  

In this episode you’ll discover:

• Which leadership style will allow you success in the changing humanitarian and development sectors
• Understand what is needed from you as a leader as you progress in your career
• Why you have more influence on your organization’s culture than you think

Hit play now to learn how to evolve your leadership style and create a lasting impact in your team and beyond!

Here are some ways to learn more about Tosca and her work:

• NGO Soul and Strategy Podcast
• Tosca Linkedin
• Tosca website
• Download free chapter of book:  Between Power and Irrelevance: The Future of Transnational NGOs
• Tosca's email: tosca@5oaksconsulting.org

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.

Find out the leadership style needed to keep up with the changes

of the evolving humanitarian and development sectors 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.

And if you haven't listened to it last week, Tosca my guest, who

I'll introduce in a minute and I explored changes going on in the

humanitarian and development sector.

And how you as a leader can manage that change effectively.

But.

What kind of changes in your leadership style do you need to make in order to

evolve with all the changes going on and the humanitarian and development sectors?

In this episode, you're going to discover which leadership style will

allow you success in the changing humanitarian development sectors,

understand what is needed from you as a leader, as you progress in your career.

And why you have more influence on your organization's culture than you think.

And once again, I am joined today by my special guest Tosca Bruno van Vijfeijken..

She has three decades of experience helping leaders and civil society

manage change, invest in cutting edge leadership development and

strengthened their effectiveness.

And she's a thought leader and a host of the NGO Soul and Strategy podcast to help

leaders look change right in the eye..

So let's get started.

Shall we?

Well, Torrey, here we are at for part two of our conversation.

I had a really nice time in the first one.

Torrey, you have worked for an INGOs.

You have 10 to 15 years.

I see of experience in doing that.

And five years as a professional leadership coach and trainer.

So your podcast is now called the modern humanitarian and development leader.

As we talked in part one, our sector is evolving.

So how is it time for people's leadership style to evolve with those changing times?

Yeah, such a great question, Tosca.

And I just want to point out that in part one, I do think that if you haven't

listened to that, you should go back and do so because we talk about organizational

change from a higher level perspective and what you can do as a leader.

If you're in that change, which I think we all are, and so to some extent,

but and part of being in that change as a leader is looking at how do we

need to evolve as leaders in order to meet the changes that we're seeing.

In the sector?

And we talked about decolonization, localization you know, racial

equity, all these things.

And one thing that I see, and, and the reason I changed the name of my

podcast and started focusing more on this area is because I see that when

we step into leadership roles, a lot of times we are mimicking our former

supervisors or just what we know.

And a lot of times what we know is what I call more of a

managerial style of leading.

So it's one where we either tell others what to do, or we teach them what to do.

And this is a very top down type of approach.

And in some instances, it is needed.

But what's needed even more now, as we transition into this new, this

change, Is more of what I call a coach approach way of leading, which

I think is the skill set of the modern humanitarian and development leader.

And it doesn't always come as naturally.

And what makes a coach approach leadership style is really where We

are asking questions like powerful or open ended questions to those

around us to help them find their own answers and find their own way.

So, so just to be clear, also for our audience, you're talking about the

kind of internal to the organization, more leaders being able to take a

coaching approach to leadership, which, as we know, also from the field of

coaches in our roles are as external coaches is often indeed about asking

these powerful questions and kind of is that is included that Torrey that once

employees, supervisees, whatever we call them, that our role as a leader as a

model leader is to facilitate the self learning by employees or supervisees?

Yeah.

So it's, it's, I feel like it's several things.

One is letting go of control or power so that we can help others

step up and take more responsibility.

When a leader is leading more from a managerial style of telling

others what to do, what happens is they will become dependent on us.

And it becomes almost like a parent child type relationship where we tell them

what to do and they do it, but they don't grow in terms of their own professional

development and their own confidence.

But when we, we use a coaching leadership style, and this also applies not only

to our teams, but to our local partners or implementing partners or government

or whomever we're working with, right, or the community even, that's why

we have human centered design, it's, essentially a coach approach way of

interacting with the community, but with the coaching style way of leading, we

are asking questions through trusting.

And this is the thing that I emphasize a lot of times when I'm teaching this is

we need to trust and that this person, this adult in front of us knows better

than we do a lot of times, what needs to be done in different situations that they

are in because they are in it, we are not, and sometimes it might even be like

the culture, the local context, whatever.

This is why we are localizing everything, right?

So, so Yes, part of that is learning and helping people to learn more about

themselves and how to to step up in their roles and, and to make decisions.

But a lot of it is also just having that trust and that confidence in

your team that they can do their jobs.

And what I tell leaders is as you grow as a leader and you start to,

let's say, progress up the chain, your role becomes less about knowing

and having to have all the answers.

And it's more about surrounding yourself with the right people.

And so that requires also having a coaching type leadership style.

Yeah.

Can I just say something to that last one?

Yeah, of course.

Of course.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What are your thoughts on all this?

Yeah, no, exactly.

This is, no, this is a big this is a big shift, right?

There was a time when I, I led a senior leadership training program that was

particularly for people that felt the need or their organizations wanted to

prime them to move from the second tier of responsibility to the, to the top tier.

And one of the, Quintessential differences between being at the second tier of

leadership and the top tier, besides the fact that it's, for instance, more

lonely and more political at the top, is that one's power Is now, and I mean power

now in a very constructive way, right?

Positive way.

One leads through other people at that level, not as you said anymore

through one's technical knowledge.

And leading through other people is very complex, right?

And there's a bunch of factors that you don't have total control anymore.

But your technical prowess, if you will, your technical

competencies are no longer relevant.

And that can create, by the way, also a sense of loss.

You know, that's why some people who move up from some form of technical

specialization into management and then leadership often may find

a sense of loss in that as well.

Some find satisfaction in that reward, others actually do not and

kind of want to step away again into that more technical role.

But yeah, that's really leading through others is, is really what, what it is.

So I really.

I liked what you were saying.

A question that I had for you.

So with trust being so important, that makes me think of delegation

and progressive delegation, right?

More and more.

That's a very complex and tricky kind of set of delegation of also a lot of

tricky aspects as a manager or a leader.

Do you want to talk to that a little bit more?

Yeah, sure.

And I think that, you know, for sure, a coaching or a coach approach way of

leading is, in a lot of ways, kind of delegation, although we when when

the way I usually explain it is when we're coaching someone, they are at a

level where they have enough experience and enough knowledge to reference to

be able to solve their own problem.

If they do not, then we need to go to teaching, not coaching.

And, and so sometimes I think leaders think that they have, what I call a

knowledge problem, which is where somebody comes to you multiple times and you might

have delegated something to them, or , you, you've asked them to do something.

It's something they've done many times before and they still come

back to you and ask for help.

And a lot of times the way I see leaders solve for that is by doing it for them

or by teaching them again, like kind of showing them, but at the same time

doing it for them where really the issue there is not the knowledge problem.

It's a confidence problem or it's a need for validation, a need for like there

may be a fear there or some kind of a lack of belief in themselves or whatever.

And that's where coaching can also help in that type situation.

Yeah.

But you know, when it comes to delegation, yeah, like the level of

delegation really does depend on, and I'm, I'm curious what your thoughts

are to Tosca, but I would say like it depends on the experience level of the

staff member that you're working with.

And you know, sometimes.

It's like we have to start smaller even when we're building confidence

and then work up from there.

And it could be also that, you know, culturally, sometimes

people are not used to.

They're used to the leader having all the answers.

So that's also been very interesting to, to look at and, and, and, and kind

of teach leaders that, because I think the fear there is that I won't have

value as a leader if I don't tell my team what to do, because this culturally

is the way it's supposed to be.

But what, what happens a lot of times is when they, they start to

try to to, to communicate better.

Like we talked to our last episode communication of why.

How this can benefit others, how delegating or coaching others can benefit

them and how it will help them grow.

Then they get more buy in from their team members.

And then it's just a matter of basically a mindset shift.

But what are your thoughts around all this, Tosca?

I kind of like when it also a big field again, right?

Yes.

And I didn't want to just to be clear, I didn't want to equate delegation

with coaching, not at all, there's only one potential response, right, as

part of that old word of empowerment that some people in the current day

environment find problematic, and other people still like to use the word.

One element I will say about delegation is yes, you said absolutely kind

of assessing what is somebody's experience level, what have they been

exposed to, how much appetite do they have, et cetera, et cetera, right?

And of course their, their knowledge.

But important besides assessing that in delegation is probably, as you

said, indeed, start with smaller, projects, initiatives, et cetera,

test it out and build it out quickly.

As you see that the person takes kind of hold of the reins and shows

both an appetite and a capability to take on more and more responsibility.

But maybe one area where you might want to be cautious is if there's a lot at

stake for the organization or for your reputation, you might want to do that

careful testing first and not jump to that because that might backfire.

So I would say that comes kind of later on in the process.

Two other thoughts.

Because I know we were not wanting to just talk about delegation.

Two other thoughts that came to my mind around coaching as a leadership

style is that that has two way aspects.

It's not just a leader coaching people in their team, for instance.

It's also reverse.

mentoring.

So the idea that for instance, I'm 62, right?

I really like it when I'm being reversed mentored by somebody who

often can be 10, 20 years, 30 years younger than me, but who has skills

or knowledge that I have not picked up and that I'm keen to learn about.

Reverse mentoring in the work place, I think, is very important for leaders to

learn from younger generations, right?

In fact, that's an element of DEI, of diversity, equity, inclusion

age that I think is sometimes a little bit under emphasized on

both sides of the spectrum, right?

The young side of the age spectrum and the the older one.

Mm hmm.

And our last thought I had in seeing what you think is, so when it comes to

coaching, a coaching style, when it comes to the time of performance reviews, right?

And performance management discussions, one of the biggest breakthroughs I

have seen in terms of self awareness, et cetera, and learning for leaders

is when they at least towards the end of a performance conversation with

an employee are asking the critical question, and what can I do to make

your work more fulfilling, to lead better, to change my ways of working,

et cetera, in order to give you the maximum opportunity to both enjoy the

work and do it as well as possible.

That is kind of reversing also power, right?

Asking for that.

That is, to my mind, also part of coaching and in some cultures,

that is actually a counterintuitive move to make for a leader, but

in my view, a very important one.

What do you think?

Yeah.

Some great points.

So first of all, just like in terms of mentorship the way I usually

define mentorship, and I know it can be defined in many ways.

That mentoring can involve, coaching, but it can also involve advice giving.

And I usually try to make it very clear that the type of like

at least what I, what I teach coaching is not giving advice.

So I try to keep those things separate.

However, for sure you can use coaching and mentoring from

what, you know, what, what I.

teach at least.

And I, I think, that the idea of reverse mentoring or being curious

or open to learning from your team is definitely a great mindset to have.

So yeah, I think that's a great point.

The other thing.

You know, it's, it's a very interesting question that you brought up and

I, I agree, but with a caveat.

Because what I found is I was teaching a group of about 400 leaders on coaching

skills and I asked them, it was one of those like cloud boards, whatever.

I asked them what question, what is your favorite coaching question?

And all, like the number one favorite coach coaching question

was, how can I help you?

And as much as I like that question, yeah, we have to be careful.

And I think you mentioned this, but I just have to emphasize it because

I see what happens sometimes is leaders want to go right to that.

And when we go right to that question, we are in a I like to use

the word empowering in this sense.

I will say disempowering the person because we are like, let's say we're

coaching them and we're coaching them around their performance plan or whatever.

And one of the first questions we ask is how can I support you?

A lot of times what I find is that the team member will, basically say,

"Oh, well, you can do it for me.

You can tell me what to do.

You can show me the resource.

You can point the way" and and so I like to encourage leaders to ask that

question, but not to the very end of that conversation, which I think is kind

of what you are saying, but I just want to emphasize that because if we ask it

too soon, we actually undo all of our intentions in terms of like wanting to

get this person to think for themselves.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, that makes sense.

And it's a very important nuance you brought in there.

I'm glad you, you emphasized that you punctuate at that point.

Yes.

I, I I had never thought about exactly in that way, but that's very, very

For me, that's very illuminating.

So Torrey, I want to, before we wrap this up, I do want you to talk a little bit

more in depth, please, about, so in your podcast and in your coaching practice

and in your teaching practice, you, you offer programs and courses, et cetera.

What are the three steps?

Let's say three to four steps to becoming a modern humanitarian

and development leader?

What's involved in that?

Yeah.

Well, thank you for asking.

So the way I see the three steps to progressing to become a modern

humanitarian and development leader are number one, first getting clarity

on what kind of impact we want to make as an individual, unique leader.

I find that oftentimes we have all kinds of performance planning goals

around objectives for projects or around our job description or

around like the regional objectives.

But we don't stop to think about what impact can I make

as a unique leader in my field?

What is it that motivates me?

And so I think.

Once you have that, because what I see, Tosca, a lot of times is that because

leaders don't stop to think about that, they don't have the why for when

they get busy and when they get busy, if your leadership impact goal, for

example, is I want to empower my team, I want to develop them, to bring them

up, to, to get them promoted, whatever.

Then when you get busy, if you have that as a leadership impact goal,

you will be more likely to stick with a coach approach leadership style

than going into the managing and telling, which can sometimes have be

quicker, at least in the short term.

So that's one thing I think is having that vision is very important.

The second thing is kind of awareness around.

ways of leading and working that are keeping us stuck.

I've identified certain ways, traditional ways of leading and working

that keep us from progressing as humanitarian and development leaders.

I can give you one example of that, and one of them is the thought, I

have to be available all the time.

And it sounds like so wonderful, like I want to be available

for everyone all the time.

It sounds like such a great thought, but actually it leads to a lot of

overwork and just unnecessary stress.

I think becoming aware of those types of ways of of leading and thinking are

important to to be able to overcome them so we get out of our own way.

And then the third part is learning how to empower those around you so that

you can, you know, not only will you lead and work more productively, but

you can get those around you to also lead and work more productively and

become the leaders they want to be.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

I'll just react briefly to your first point that was really interesting about

first become clear before you get busy.

What impacts do I want to have as a, as a leader, if you will and then we'll

have to bring this episode to a close, but you know, that impact, what type

of impact do I want to have is also the answer to that question is also an

important source of information, if you will, for what kind of culture do I want

to shape in my team, for instance, right?

Or in my large organization, if I have that span, if you will, that reach and,

you know, the field of organization culture is also huge once again, but And,

you know, cultures are often tenacious.

So it's not as if as a leader, you're coming into something

that you can wholly shape.

But over time, if you're given enough time and you know how to do

this, and you're very intentional and self aware around this, you can

shape the outlines of that culture, at least at a team or group level.

And what impacts I want to have as a leader is also saying something about what

kind of culture I want to drive, right?

And by which I mean, what are the sets of habits, practices and

behaviors that I want to cultivate in my team or organization?

Or do I want to discourage?

As habits, practices or behaviors and what are the underlying belief

systems and assumptions that inform those habits, practices and behavior?

So how does that land with you, this link between what impact you gonna have

and, and driving organizational culture?

Yeah, it's, it's such a great point and you're right.

And one thing that I think like I wanna emphasize kind of about what you're

saying is a lot of times we think.

Like we're only supervising two people or four people or whatever.

And there's not much impact or influence that we can have, but you can have

influence over those two people, excuse me, over those four people.

The more that we focus on the, what we have control over, which is the culture of

our immediate team, the more that we can create that change that we want to see.

And one thing, Tosca, and I think maybe you'll agree with me on this,

but we can't just wait around for our organizations to make the change for

us because they are going to take time.

It may never happen.

And so why not be that change yourself?

That's right.

That's right.

So let's end on that.

And let me just give a big shout out also to Torrey's podcast.

As we talked in the last episode and implied in this

one, our sector is evolving.

It's time for our leadership styles to evolve with it.

Torrey's podcast called the "Modern humanitarian and development worker"

is for humanitarian and development leaders, obviously working for the

UN, INGOs and national NGOs who want to have a bigger impact without

being overwhelmed or overworked.

And so I strongly recommend that podcast to you as well.

Thank you, Tosca.

It was great talking with you.

All right.

I hope you enjoyed that interview.

Here are three key takeaway points.

There are many others as well, but I'm just giving you these

three as a quick overview.

So the coaching leadership style or using coaching as a way of leading

that is asking questions rather than telling is in general underused

by various supervisors, because it usually requires some kind of training.

It's not as intuitive as a managerial style.

And yet it is a way to help your team grow and also encourage people

closest to the problem to solve it.

Number two, as you progress in your career, you will need to know less

and ask more questions because your role is taking on more responsibility.

It's impossible to know it all.

So you have to ask better questions rather than having all the answers.

And number three is you can also influence your organizational's culture no matter

where you are within the organization.

And basically you do this by focusing on what's within your control.

And if that's your team, then so be it.

And set an example for others.

I promise you.

This can be a very powerful way to make an impact.

So.

If you want to find out more about Tosca, there are links in the show notes.

Once again, her LinkedIn page, her website, how you can find about her book

and more about the services she offers through her business Five Oaks consulting.

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!