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Welcome to the Aid for Aid Workers Leadership Podcast.

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I'm Torrey Peace, a former aid worker, now leadership coach, whose mission is

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to help you achieve the impact you're seeking while empowering your team and

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stepping away from the hustle so you can focus on the things you love the most.

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Sound good? Let's get started.

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Hello, my aid worker friend. I hope you're having a wonderful week.

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I was thinking about last week's episode and talking about

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how to make a greater impact.

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And one of the things that I mentioned was once you have an idea of the

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impact that you want to create, then how do you manage your time effectively

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so you can do that? And I see certain things that Humanitarian and Development

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supervisors do, which actually prevents you from being as effective with

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managing your time as you could be.

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And I'm pretty sure you probably have not heard of the three things

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I'm going to be talking about today. I remember when I was in Timor and there was a proposal opportunity that came

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up and I already had a lot going on at the time I was the Country Manager

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and so I was kind of like a Head of Programs and a Country Representative

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all in one, a shout out to those of you doing that role, it's not easy.

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I remember.

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reviewing the proposal and there was some pressure to apply for this

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particular proposal mainly because it would bring in funding but also

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because of the visibility and so on.

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But I realized upon reviewing it that it just wasn't a good fit for us.

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Like strategically, it didn't quite align with our plan and it was going to require

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a lot of work and diverted resources.

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And I wasn't quite sure either the probability that we had

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being very high to, to win it.

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So I pushed back and I remember having a conversation in which I was very nervous,

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but I recommended to my supervisor to not apply for the proposal and I gave him

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some of the reasons that I just stated. And I said the things that I felt I needed to say and I did so not only

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to protect my own time and to make sure that we were on track and we

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were following our strategic plan, but also to protect the time of my team.

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And surprisingly, he came back to me and he said, you know what,

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you're right, let's not go for it.

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And imagine if I had not pushed back at that opportunity, I think they

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probably would have expected us to go forward and put a lot of time

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and resources into applying for this proposal that it was very likely

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that we weren't, going to win. And would have diverted a lot of attention to the things that we

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were already implementing and the impact that we were already making.

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And I bring up this example because I think that sometimes

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we forget that we, as leaders or supervisors, we are the gateway.

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Part of our role is to set these types of boundaries, as I would call

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them, and really protect not only our own time, but our team's time too.

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And that actually leads me to one of the first ways that you can manage

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your time more effectively and something that I think many leaders

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forget or don't think about, and that is setting boundaries on your time

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and on your team's time by saying no.

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What happens when we are not more strategic about what we say yes to,

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and we're not aware of our already existing workload and whether we can

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or cannot take on more, what happens is we eliminate or dissolve our boundary.

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So if we talk about boundaries, what does that mean?

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Well, the idea behind a boundary is that it's kind of like a fence, right?

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It's a protection allowing you to control what comes near you and your space or

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your workload in this case versus what you say no to, what you turn away.

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And some of you are just so liberal with your boundaries that

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they don't even really exist. They're almost invisible.

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And so guess what happens? When we don't have that fence and we're not reinforcing that fence, then

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others will take advantage of that.

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And they will see that we don't have a fence and so, "Hey, I can

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just stop by whenever I want." And as nice as that sounds, it's actually not being genuine to them or to you

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because you're essentially allowing someone to take advantage of you.

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And you are also

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giving them the impression that you are okay with them doing that and and so we

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need to teach others how to treat us.

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And we start by the way we treat ourselves.

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And this is kind of an underlying theme for today's episode because

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what happens is when we don't have that boundary, when we allow people

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to give us more work and we don't say "no" or we don't say we can't take on

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more work, we eliminate that boundary.

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We feel disempowered. We feel like we have no control.

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We feel demotivated and frustrated, but we're doing it to ourselves.

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It's not our organization doing it to us.

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It's not our team or our supervisor doing it to us.

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It's because we are doing it to ourselves.

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We are allowing it to happen.

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And so I want you to see this because you have the ability to set that boundary.

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It's up to you whether you do work or not.

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And I know there's a lot more sometimes to this and the reasons

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why we say yes and no, and I'll get to that in a minute as well.

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But I think it's important to first point out that,

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if we set a boundary around ourselves and if we don't respect that, we're not,

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allowing others to respect us either.

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And sometimes we can forget that and we blame others.

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But this is also part of what I call "taking responsibility" the more we

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have responsibility over our own time and what we say yes and no to, the

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more that we realize that by saying no, by setting this boundary, we are

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teaching others how to respect us.

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You have to teach others how you want to be treated and we have to

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realize that it comes down to first, how we want to treat ourselves.

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If you want to treat yourself as someone who is able to take on tons of work

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then guess what's going to happen? You will be overloaded and overworked.

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So I want you to think about and be more strategic around saying yes to

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work that would not normally fall on your plate, or even if it would

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normally fall on your plate or be given to you and to really communicate

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when you feel like it's too much.

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We need more leaders doing this.

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When you do that you also are setting an example.

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for your team. You're also allowing your team to do the same- to say they need help,

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to say that "this is too much.

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I can't take on this extra work.

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We need to look for an alternative or we need to reprioritize things."

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So that is the first thing is being able to set a boundary and

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respecting our own boundaries. by saying no.

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And the word no, I think some people are afraid of, but you

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don't have to say the word no. You can say not right now, or I need to get back to you or let me think

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about it and come back to them. There are many ways of saying this besides just "no", but think about

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in advance how you want to say it, and then maybe even practice.

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But there's nothing wrong with saying no.

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And if anything, you're teaching your team or your others to respect you more.

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And there's also nothing wrong, of course, with

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asking for help if that's what you need as well.

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Stranded vehicles, oh, no.

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Donor visits? Oh, man. And delayed procurement!

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You've got a lot on your mind and we want to make it easy to get the best leadership

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All you have to do is join our weekly email list and you'll receive a weekly

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aidforaidworkers.

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com. That's www.

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aidforaidworkers. com and click on the sign up for weekly emails in the navigation

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bar at the top of the page. Now back to today's episode.

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We talked about not respecting your boundaries or your

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ability to say no to others. But this also goes into not respecting your own time.

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I'll give you an example. When I first started, doing consultancies, I was asked to

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help a new organization to look at their workload and why everyone

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was overwhelmed and overworked.

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And it was a humanitarian organization.

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They were doing great work. There were several reasons why everyone was overworked and overwhelmed, but

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this was one of the biggest ones. And that was when people would schedule time in their calendar to work on

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something, for example, they had to work on research and Development

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or a report they had for a client, when someone else asked them if

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they were busy during that time, they would say no.

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Even if they had scheduled time to work on something, as long as that thing

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they were working on, it was just time they were working by themselves, in

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other words, they weren't working with anyone else, it was just by themselves.

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They would say they were not busy.

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I find this so interesting. Why we think that when we schedule a meeting with ourselves.

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That if someone comes along and asks us if we're busy during

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that time, we say we are not.

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When we are, we have something on our calendar.

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And what happened in this case, they would say, "Oh no, I'm not busy."

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And so they would schedule over the time that they had set aside to work

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on this report or this research.

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And then guess what? They would have to work on those things after hours, or they'd have

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to work on them on the weekend or they would have to work on them and

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squeeze them into various hours.

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And then that led to being overworked and overwhelmed.

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Why? Because they weren't respecting their own scheduled time with themselves.

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Now, I know sometimes you might have an emergency meeting that's really important

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with the government or whoever, and you do need to schedule over time that

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maybe you've scheduled for focused work.

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However, I think that should be not the normal, but the exception.

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We should, whenever we have a meeting or I hope that you put this time

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in your calendar to work on things that require focused concentration,

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I hope that you have that in your calendar during work hours.

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And then you need to treat that time as if you are meeting with

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the CEO of your organization.

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So if someone comes along and they ask you if you're busy, you say, "yes, I am busy."

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Because you are, you're busy with yourself.

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You have a meeting with yourself to do this really important work.

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And guess what? They will be fine with that.

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Because once again, if, if you say, "Oh no, I'm not busy" then

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you're only disrespecting yourself. They're not disrespecting you, but we get really frustrated and overwhelmed

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because then we feel like, Oh, I have no time to do this all during the day.

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Now I have to do it at night or whatever, but that's our own fault.

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So also taking responsibility when it comes to meetings with ourselves

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and respecting our own time.

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And guess what? Also, If we do not respect ourselves and our time, then we also know it.

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We know it, and we begin to not trust ourselves.

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And so when we schedule our time on our calendar, we schedule it out, but we have

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this feeling of anxiety or mistrust that we're not going to follow through with

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the things we say because we haven't. Because in the past we scheduled over this time, we've, we've not

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followed through for ourselves, and so we don't trust ourselves.

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We are disrespecting ourselves.

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And it all begins with how you treat yourself, right?

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So first thing, setting boundaries and being able to set that fence around

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you to what work you are willing and able to take in and what you're not.

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And also setting boundaries in terms of your own time and respecting your

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time that you've scheduled when you have focused work with yourself.

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All right. The third thing to manage your time more effectively that many

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leaders do not do has to do with the way we're looking at our time.

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And there are many layers to this, but in the interest of time, I'm

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going to just go through a few. The things that I've talked about so far, setting boundaries with

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your time, and then also respecting your meetings with yourself.

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If you feel uncomfortable and find yourself resisting these kinds of

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suggestions that I'm making, it's because you probably have this third challenge,

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which is your thinking or your mindset.

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So, in other words, you have a belief or a way of thinking about your time that is

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preventing you from taking these actions.

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I'll give you an example. If you feel that you cannot say no to others because you don't want to

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disappoint them or you think you won't be seen as a team player, sometimes we

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see this as this is how it's going to be.

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If somebody asked me to do more work and I say no, they're going

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to think I'm not a team player. but that is not a fact.

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That is a thought.

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That is a belief. If you believe that you won't be seen as a team player if you say no, the

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crazy thing is that this can be so powerful that it will prevent you

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from saying no or setting boundaries.

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And we think by doing this, that we're actually being good team players.

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When oftentimes when we don't set boundaries and we say yes to too much

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work, we're actually being the opposite.

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We're not being a team player at all because we are lying.

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We are lying and saying that we can handle it, when we really cannot.

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And that does not serve us and it does not serve our team.

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So this is one of the examples of the type of thinking that I'm talking about,

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which I label under the umbrella of High Performance Syndrome thoughts.

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Now, I think I talked about High Performance Syndrome before, but once

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again, it's basically a well intentioned way of thinking and leading, which

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we think will lead us to impact, but actually does the opposite.

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And I see it all the time.

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We think, " I'm a high performer if I'm a team player", but the way

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we're trying to be a team player is actually creating the opposite result.

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We're burning out and getting overwhelmed.

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So these thoughts, they come from a good place, but they actually

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create the opposite of what we want.

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So there are several High Performance Syndrome thoughts that humanitarian

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and Development workers have, which keep us overworked and overwhelmed.

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One of them, of course, is the one that I just covered,

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"I need to be a team player". Another one is "I have to always be available", which I've talked about

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in the previous episode on open door policy.., "This needs to be perfect."

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Another one. And there are others as well.

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We think we're high performers and we're doing better, but it's actually preventing

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us from being higher performers.

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And the more we are aware of these things, and we identify these thoughts

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and we are able to coach ourselves or others to overcome them, we can be

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more productive and create true impact.

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And this is exactly what we cover in "The Coach Approach Leadership Style" course.

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We start with how do we identify the high performance syndrome thoughts that

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we have that are preventing us from

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making the impact that we really want from focusing our time on the things

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that will be most productive for us?

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What are the things that we believe, for example, "I have to be a team

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player" or, " I don't have control over my time" is another one.

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What are these things that are keeping us from really

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being as productive as we can with our teams and ourselves so that

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we can truly create an impact.

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So I really encourage you to reflect on this and practice setting boundaries

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if that's what you need to do or practice respecting your time and

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really becoming more aware of how the way you're thinking about your time and

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your interactions and your work with others might be preventing you from

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being as productive as you could be.

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All right, that's it for now. Until next week, keep broadening your impact.

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Bye for now. Hey, if you are ready to step up your leadership game, I want to invite

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you to join my coaching course for aid worker leaders, where you're

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going to learn how to master coaching skills in order to empower your team

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to become more proactive, confident, and motivated at what they do, which

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of course will help you achieve more impact for them and for you.

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Just head over to www.

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aidforaidworkers. com and click on the coaching course waiting list.

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So you'll be the first to know when doors open for the next enrollment.

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Can't wait to see you there.