Navigating Difficult Change: A Case Study from a Humanitarian Leader

Aid for Aid Workers Leadership Podcast

Let's face it, humanitarian and development work are reliably unpredictable. Insecurity, limited resources, and many other factors can make doing a simple task such as visiting a community challenging.

One of the most dreaded tasks from my perspective as a leader was a funding cut. A sudden cut in funding not only impacts the communities where we work but also the ability to keep our staff - and this of course means livelihoods are affected.

My guest today, Shamnaz Ahmed, shares the difficulty she faced in navigating such a change - when her supervisor asked her to cut the programming budget by $5 million USD. And to make things even more challenging, Shamnaz did not manage any of the staff with whom she would be announcing and making those changes with. Despite these challenges, Shamnaz did an amazing job of handling a difficult situation - and in this episode you can learn how to do the same.