Are you unknowingly giving up control over your career, leadership, and well-being? This episode reveals how NGO leaders often underestimate their influence—and what you can do about it today.

In this episode you'll discover:

• The three most common ways NGO leaders give up their power—and how to stop doing so.
• How to rethink career progression and create opportunities beyond the ‘traditional’ path.
• Practical steps to take control of your work culture, team leadership, and personal well-being.

Don’t allow assumptions to block your ability to create change—start shaping the NGO career and leadership style you want today.

Tune in now to learn how to take back your influence and create meaningful change!

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.

This podcast empowers international development and humanitarian NGO UN leaders to achieve high performance teams, fostering diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing, overcoming burnout and overwhelm, while maximizing impact and productivity.

What happens to your leadership when the pressure is on?

Most organizations have values written on their websites. But according to today's guest, our real values are revealed not when things are easy—but when uncertainty, competing priorities, and difficult decisions force us to choose how we will respond.

In this episode, I speak with Kim Kucinskas, Director of the TIME Transformation Lab at Humentum, about what it means to lead with integrity during a time of unprecedented change in the humanitarian and development sector.

Together, we explore why many traditional leadership approaches are becoming less effective, how uncertainty is changing the skills leaders need, and how values can serve as a practical guide when there are no perfect answers.

Whether you are leading a team through funding cuts, organizational change, or simply trying to navigate an increasingly complex world, this conversation offers practical insights on how to stay grounded in what matters most.

• Why values are more than words—and how they show up through daily behaviors

• What "pressure reveals values" really means for leaders

• Why self-awareness is essential for values-based leadership

• How uncertainty is reshaping leadership in the humanitarian and development sector

• The difference between leadership skills that worked in stable environments and those needed today

• How to make decisions with integrity when there is no clear right answer

• Why courage is required to lead change, even when others around you are not

• How values audits can help organizations bring their values to life

• Practical ways to strengthen collaboration during times of scarcity and competition

• The powerful concept of "elbows down, not elbows out"

• Why the future is built through the small choices leaders make every day

"Values are the fancy words on the website. Behaviors are where values show up in everyday life."

"Pressure doesn't create values—it reveals them."

"We often seek moral clarity. What if instead we focused on making decisions with integrity, even when they aren't perfect?"

"Leadership today requires us to bridge and build at the same time."

"We can't control uncertainty, but we can control how we show up within it."

Kim Kucinskas is Director of the TIME Transformation Lab at Humentum, where she works with organizations, networks, and leaders to navigate complex change and build more equitable, resilient, and future-ready systems. Through the Transformation Lab, Kim helps organizations make sense of uncertainty, strengthen collaboration, and develop practical approaches for leading through transition and transformation.

• Humentum Living Our Values Guide

• TIME Transformation Lab

• Kim's Linkedin

Kim's Podcast: The Sector Debrief

Humentum Course in Collaboration with Torrey: Leading NGO Teams Through Uncertainty

As leaders, we're often encouraged to be more curious.

Ask better questions. Make fewer assumptions. Seek to understand before being understood.

But can curiosity ever go too far?

In this episode, Torrey explores a question raised by one of her students: When does curiosity cross the line into getting into other people's business?

Drawing on her coaching and leadership experience, she unpacks the important distinction between genuine curiosity and the type of questioning that is driven by assumptions, judgment, or a desire to confirm what we already believe.

You'll learn why curiosity is one of the most powerful leadership skills—and how to ensure it builds trust rather than fueling gossip, rumors, and misunderstanding.

• Why curiosity is essential for effective leadership
• The difference between seeking understanding and seeking confirmation
• How assumptions can disguise themselves as curiosity
• Why healthy curiosity respects boundaries
• A simple question to ask yourself before asking someone else a question

"Curiosity seeks understanding. Toxic curiosity seeks confirmation."

• What assumptions might I be making about the people around me?
• Am I asking questions to understand—or to confirm what I already believe?
• Where might I need to be more curious in my leadership conversations?
• How can I respect others' boundaries while remaining genuinely interested in understanding them?

Learn more about Torrey's leadership programs and resources:

www.aidforaidworkers.com

Find on YouTube Here

Take the Leadership Style Quiz:

www.aidforaidworkers.com/quiz

If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a colleague or fellow leader and leave a review. It helps more humanitarian and development leaders discover the podcast and build healthier, more empowering leadership practices.