Avsnitt
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Right now, public sector organisations across New Zealand are losing people in numbers we haven't seen before. The redundancy figures get reported. The org chart gets updated. But what happens to the knowledge that walks out the door with them, the way someone could read a tricky stakeholder in three seconds, the history of why a system was built the way it was, the relationships that kept the wheels turning?
In this solocast, Digby argues most leaders are treating workforce reduction as a numbers exercise when it's actually a capability exercise. Systems and technology can pick up some of the slack. They cannot replace the relational, tacit knowledge that lives in people's heads and in how a team works together. Digby sets out a practical way to prepare for these transitions: map where critical capability actually sits before it leaves, invest deliberately in the people who stay, and build systems strong enough to survive the next departure. As he puts it, you can be the fire or the fire tender.
You'll learn:
How to identify the institutional knowledge that exists only in people's heads, before it walks out the doorWhy systems and technology can't replace the relational work that holds a team togetherThe difference between leading as the fire and leading as the fire tenderA practical way to map critical capability before a restructure hitsHow to invest in the people who stay so they can carry things forwardWhat it actually takes to build a team that survives transition without falling apartOther References
What Survives When People Leave Blog PostCheck out my services and offerings https://www.digbyscott.com/
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How much of your energy goes into being the version of yourself you think the room expects? For many senior leaders, that performance runs quietly in the background all day, and it is exhausting. You spend years climbing toward the room where the big decisions get made, only to arrive and quietly wonder whether the person doing the job is actually you.
This episode explores what changes when you stop managing a persona and start leading from who you already are.
My guest Erin Judge calls the hierarchy we all defer to the "fictional ladder," and once you see it that way, the distance between the newest person in the room and the most senior starts to look a lot smaller. What becomes possible when you trust that the thoughts in your own head are as worth saying as anyone else's?
We also explore a deceptively simple idea for handling feedback: rather than rebuilding yourself every time someone pushes back, you keep your essence and adjust the dial.
Erin Judge (Ngāti Tūwharetoa) has built her career inside some of New Zealand's most complex systems: child welfare, criminal justice, and sector-wide public reform. She came from a low socio-economic background, was the first in her family to go to university, and was admitted to the bar at 21. She went on to become Chief Legal Officer at Oranga Tamariki and helped establish the Government Legal Network. These days she works for herself, moving between Iwi, NGOs and the public sector, and the value she brings is holding several of those worlds at once and helping each one see where the other is coming from.
You'll learn:
How to tell the difference between leading and managing, and why chasing the title is the wrong prizeWhy the newest person in the room might be the most valuable, and how to give them permission to speakHow dialling your strengths up or down beats trying to become someone you're notWhy every strength carries a shadow, and what it costs to hide behind the thing you're good atHow understanding someone's motivation changes the way you influence themWhy seeking out hard things, and views that rile you, builds the kind of resilience that lastsHow to lead for impact that outlives your tenure, without needing the creditWhy a breadth of experiences often matters more than deep technical expertiseTimestamps:
(05:03) - Journey to Authentic Leadership
(10:00) - Resilience Through Adversity
(25:41) - Understanding Perspectives and Influencing Change
(28:05) - The Duality of Superpowers
(35:18) - Leading vs Managing
(39:39) - Creating Lasting Impact Beyond Tenure
Other References
Supernormal, by Meg Jay Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein Proverb: planting trees whose shade you'll never sit inYou can find Erin at:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-j-16001153
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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How much of your day do you actually choose to give your attention to? Not just your time but your attention. Because there's a difference. And most leaders are managing the wrong thing.
This episode cuts through the noise around productivity to explore what's really going on when leaders feel stretched thin and constantly reactive. The answer isn't a better calendar or a tighter to-do list. It's getting deliberate about where your focus actually lands and protecting it like it matters. Because it does.
In this solocast, Digby explores the distinction between time, attention, and intention management, and why most productivity advice stops one layer too shallow. You'll hear about:
Why time management alone won't fix a scattered leadership practiceThe difference between attention and intention, and why intention is where the real leverage livesHow notifications and constant availability are quietly eroding your capacity to lead wellWhy sanctuary time, protected space to think without interruption isn't a luxury, it's a leadership disciplineWhat wisdom has to do with AI, and why it's the distinctly human edge that no tool can replicateThe one question worth sitting with at the end of each dayOther references
Leadership as an Act of Attention Blog PostCheck out my services and offerings: https://www.digbyscott.com/
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How much of what you measure actually tells you whether you're making a difference?
Most senior leaders can point to a dashboard full of healthy-looking numbers. Attendance is up, participation is steady, the reports come back green. And underneath it all sits a question that's easy to avoid: is any of this the thing that actually matters? Grant Yonge took a job with that exact question built into the title.
When Grant said yes to becoming Executive Director, Organisational Impact at the Y, his honest answer was that he didn't yet know what impact meant. What he knew was what it wasn't. This conversation follows what happened next: the shift away from counting participation towards real evidence about whether young people are flourishing, and the discovery that a 180-year-old story could anchor purpose better than any strategy document. What if the most useful thing you measured was also the hardest thing to count? Let's explore what changes when a leader stops settling for the easy version.
Grant Yonge is Executive Director, Organisational Impact at the Y in Western Australia. He arrived there by an unusual route, starting out in hotel and resort management before spending the past fifteen years in the not-for-profit sector. He brings corporate rigour and a genuine sense of purpose to the work, and he thinks about leadership the way he thinks about playing in a band. In this episode, you'll hear:
How to move an organisation from counting participation to evidencing real impactWhy "getting to what's real" matters as much in corporate and government as it does in the social sectorHow a story from 1844 becomes a living tool for shaping culture todayWhy knowing your part, and resisting the urge to play every part, makes the whole team strongerHow stepping back can create more impact than stepping inWhy naming each person's "spikiness" leads to better decisionsHow to help people find their place in the work, even on their hardest dayWhy deep conviction and real vulnerability can live in the same leaderTimestamps:
(08:27) - The Journey to Defining Impact
(19:09) - Gathering and Sharing Stories of Impact
(26:31) - The Metaphor of Music in Leadership
(30:34) - Understanding Your Unique Contribution
(35:36) - Navigating Leadership Challenges
(39:13) - Connecting to Purpose and Legacy
Other References
Y.M.C.A SongY.M.C.A Boy George re-recordingHow Great Leaders Inspire Action | Simon Sinek TED TalkHow to Make of a Life | Jim CollinsThe Gifts of Imperfection | Brené BrownThe Art of Possibility | Ben ZanderKeith RichardsYou can find Grant at:
Website: https://theywa.org.au/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grant-yonge-b6a30924/
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You know how most days go. There's the list to clear, the email that just landed, the conversation that has to happen by Friday. You sort it, and tomorrow you do it all again. Those things matter, and I'm not going to pretend they don't. But if a good day's work is only ever solving the problems of that day, I reckon you're missing a trick. Because your days become your weeks, become your years. When you look back over those years, what will you be able to say you contributed? And what do you want to be able to say?
This solocast came out of a briefing call with a school principal. She told me she'd been sitting in her own leadership team meeting, listening to everyone work through what needed doing, and quietly realised she didn't need to be there. She wasn't threatened by that. She felt good, like something had finally worked. We get into what makes that moment possible: the difference between a problem focus and a possibility focus, what shifts when you stop patching symptoms and start improving the system, and the language change that marks leaders who've started thinking beyond their own time in the chair, from "this is what I'm doing" to "how am I setting this place up to outlast me?"
Here's some of what I cover:
Why a possibility focus lifts your energy, while a problem focus has you tired and playing defence by Tuesday afternoonThe shift from delegating tasks to genuinely growing the people around youThree questions we worked through at the conference, worth sitting with on a quiet morningHow to find the intersection of where you're energised and where you're uniquely positioned to serveWhy lasting impact asks you to choose one thing, not everything at onceIf relentless busyness is the pattern you keep running into, drop me a line at https://www.digbyscott.com/contact and we'll have a chat.
Blog post https://www.digbyscott.com/thoughts/what-will-outlast-you/
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There's something seductive about being the leader who walks into the room with the answers. Leadership culture has spent decades rewarding exactly that: the person who steps up, takes charge, and makes things happen. What if that pattern, the very thing that got you here, is also quietly limiting how far your people can go? And what if the most significant move available to you right now isn't to lead more, but to lead differently?
This episode explores the shift from hero to host. It's one of those ideas that sounds deceptively simple and turns out to be one of the hardest things a senior leader can actually do. To mark a milestone in the Dig Deeper archive, five extraordinary guests are brought together, each of whom has found their own way into this idea. Through event design, pandemic leadership, organisational transformation, the craft of facilitation, and the quiet philosophy of letting go, they're all pointing at the same thing. I wonder what it would mean for your leadership if you took it seriously.
These five voices shape the conversation. DK is a creative producer, speaker coach, and curiosity lightning rod who spent nearly a decade designing celebrated TEDx events in Wellington, known for an approach that starts with the people in the room, not the content on the stage. Sir Ashley Bloomfield served as Director General of Health for New Zealand through COVID-19, and discovered, sometimes painfully, that what people needed from their leader wasn't certainty. James McCulloch is CEO of Victim Support New Zealand, a leader who has quietly and deliberately refused to be the superhero the role invites him to become. Simon Dowling is a facilitator and author who has spent years helping leaders understand the spaces they create and why those spaces shape everything that becomes possible within them. Callum McKirdy is a coach and facilitator who makes a distinction between being, doing, and trying that might just change how you show up in your next meeting.
From these five conversations, here's some of what you'll discover:
How the shift from hero to host creates the conditions for lasting organisational changeWhy designing with your people in mind, rather than your agenda, changes everythingHow the distinction between legacy and impact reveals a fundamentally different kind of leadershipWhy kindness and niceness are not the same thing, and why that difference matters profoundly for teamsHow self-awareness is the foundation that everything effective leadership rests onWhy the spaces a leader creates, intentionally or not, determine what becomes possible in those spacesHow admitting what you don't know builds, rather than erodes, your credibility as a leaderWhy the word between "doing" and "being" is "trying," and what that costs usTimestamps:
(00:00) From Hero to Host: A Leadership Paradigm Shift
(06:55) The Power of Team Dynamics in Leadership
(12:46) Legacy vs. Impact: Redefining Leadership Goals
(19:00) Creating Intentional Spaces for Leadership
(25:08) The Permission to Be: Authentic Leadership Practices
Other references
Ted LassoFlawsome by Georgia MurchJim Collins | Level 5 LeadershipThe Castle (1997)Tony Blair coming to powerConnect with the guests:
DK: Website
Sir Ashley Bloomfield: LinkedIn
James McCulloch: Website | LinkedIn
Simon Dowling: Website | LinkedIn
Callum McKirdy: Website | LinkedIn
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Have you ever stood in front of a room with your heart thumping in your ears? Or walked away from a moment knowing you should have spoken up, and didn't?
Fear runs more of our leadership than we like to admit. Powering through it works for a while, until it doesn't. Getting specific about what's actually going on underneath is where the real shift starts.
In this solocast I share a three-part framework I've used for years to work with my own fear, especially before walking onto a stage: name it, frame it, tame it. It's simple, and it applies to all the everyday moments where the stakes feel higher than they probably are.
Here's what I get into:
The moment before I addressed a large audience for the first time, and what was actually running through my headWhy putting words to a feeling changes what your brain does nextThe difference between fears that are about survival and fears that are about social standingWhy the worst case version we play in our heads rarely shows up in real lifeA small action that builds more real confidence than another round of rehearsalWhy naming your fears out loud builds trust with the people you leadReferences
Fear - Name It Frame It Tame It worksheetStart Close In | David WhyteCheck out my services and offerings https://www.digbyscott.com/
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What if the leadership model you've inherited is the very thing standing between your team and its potential? Most of us have experienced at least once what it feels like when a team is genuinely alive. When trust is in the room. When leadership moves around naturally, and people show up as their whole selves. And yet for most leaders, most of the time, the unspoken hope remains that the right person will arrive with the right answers and fix things. We race straight to task. We skip the human stuff. We declare a safe space and wonder why trust is still so hard to build, and so easy to lose.
What if there's a fundamentally different way of meeting each other? One that's not just a nice idea, but a proven strategy for performance under the kind of pressure that matters most?
In this conversation, Christian Penny brings a frame that has been tested across thousands of years on the marae and refined through decades of applying it in drama schools, Olympic programmes, and elite Super Rugby environments. It's a frame where presence and people come before task, not as an indulgence, but as the very investment that pays off when the pressure is on. Where leadership isn't a position but a question: what does this moment require, and who in the room can answer it? And where your distinct strengths, the things that only you bring, aren't optional extras but the contribution your team is quietly waiting for you to own.
Christian Penny is one of New Zealand's most quietly radical leadership thinkers. A former Director of Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School, co-architect of the Ruku Ao leadership programme for senior public sector leaders, and a current adviser to the Hurricanes Super Rugby team and the Black Ferns Sevens, Christian has spent his career asking a single question across wildly different performance contexts: what really creates the conditions where people and performance can thrive? Drawing on Māori frameworks, the craft of theatre, and years at the edge of elite sport, he brings a practice that bridges indigenous wisdom and contemporary leadership with uncommon depth and warmth.
In this episode, you will discover:
How the myth of the hero leader persists even when we know it doesn't work, and what the marae offers as a practical, tested alternativeWhy putting people before task isn't soft leadership, it's the investment that pays off under the most intense pressureHow "go slow to go fast" transforms team performance precisely when it counts mostWhy alignment is often a fantasy, and how learning to use each other's difference is the real leadership skillHow to ask the question that changes the room: "What does this moment require, and who can lead us here?"Why trust is emergent, not declared, and what that means for how you build it deliberatelyHow knowing and naming your strengths doesn't just make you more potent, it makes life easier for everyone around youWhy courage, not confidence, is the real prerequisite for stepping up, and how that reframe changes everythingTimestamps:
(00:00) - The Myth of the Hero Leader
(10:25) - Presence Over Task in Leadership
(17:26) - The Shift from Hero to Host Leadership
(23:31) - Emergent Leadership and Dynamic Teams
(30:01) - Overcoming Resistance to New Leadership Models
(36:37) - The Importance of Small Victories in Leadership
Other references:
Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama SchoolRuku Ao leadership programmeManutūkē Marae, RongowhakaataHigh Performance Sport New Zealand (HPSNZ)The HurricanesBlack Ferns SevensDigby Scott's Superpowers exerciseYou can find Christian at:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-penny-54016515/
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You're across everything. The problems, the people, the pressure. And somehow, no matter how much you get through, there's always another thing popping up that needs your attention. Sound familiar?
In this episode, Digby explores what it actually means to have a leadership identity and why most leaders are defining theirs by accident, one reactive moment at a time. Drawing on William James's observation that the ability to bring back a wandering attention is the very root of judgement and character, he makes the case that where you direct your focus is not a time management question. It's an identity question.
In this episode, we cover:
Why reactive leadership is like playing whack-a-mole and what it costs you over timeThe difference between solving problems and building the systems that make fewer problems inevitableHow to define a leadership identity that guides your decisions before the pressure hitsA practical exercise to help you name your purpose and start leading from itThe one question that cuts through the noise: what do you need to build so your team can thrive without you?Check out my services and offerings https://www.digbyscott.com/
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You've built the career. You've hit the milestones, earned the respect, ticked the boxes that once seemed so far away. And yet there's a quiet discomfort underneath it all. Something that's hard to name but hard to ignore. A sense that the achievements are real, and yet something at the heart of it is still missing. I wonder if that feeling is more common among successful leaders than any of us let on.
What if the thing that's missing isn't another goal, a bigger title, or a smarter strategy, but a deeper sense of what your leadership is actually for? In this conversation, Prina Shah and I explore the idea that legacy isn't something you earn at the end of a long career and hand it over at your farewell function. It's something you can build right now, today, with this team, on this project. We also get into what it really means to manage your energy rather than just your time, and what it looks like to step back from heroic leadership and build something that genuinely doesn't depend entirely on you.
Prina Shah is a coach, consultant, trainer, speaker, and the author of Make Work Meaningful: How to Create a Culture That Leaves a Legacy. She's spent years working alongside executives who have achieved extraordinary things, and she asks the question most leaders are too busy to sit with: what's missing from a heart perspective? In this conversation, we explore:
How to reframe legacy as something you leave every single day, not a footnote reserved for the end of a careerWhy leaders who carry that nagging sense of something missing often haven't yet defined what will actually fulfil themHow shifting from ambition to meaning changes the quality of decisions you makeWhy managing your energy rather than your time is the more honest path to sustained performanceHow a simple "door framing" practice can keep you genuinely present across a day of back-to-back meetingsWhy becoming the indispensable go-to in your organisation might be the thing quietly holding your team backHow building a learning culture inside your team creates resilience that doesn't depend on you to sustain itWhy the question "what important things have no action steps attached to them?" might be the most useful one you haven't been askingTimestamps:
(00:00) - Reframing Legacy: A Daily Consideration
(05:00) - The Missing Piece: Fulfilment Beyond Achievements
(12:06) - Energy Management: The Key to Effective Leadership
(18:06) - Creating a Learning Culture: Empowering Teams
(25:00) - Breaking the Bottleneck: Trusting Your Team
(32:12) - Redefining Work: Balancing Leadership and Reflection
Other references:
Make Work Meaningful: How to Create a Culture That Leaves a Legacy — Prina ShahWays to Change Your Workplace Podcast — Prina Shah (host)Simon SinekSeth Godin — "work is not working""Becoming the Boss" — Linda A. Hill, Harvard Business Review (January 2007)Prina's self-coaching journalYou can find Prina at:
Website: https://www.prinashah.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prinashah/
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Have you ever missed the moment? Something shifted in a conversation or a meeting, and by the time you noticed, you were already playing catch up. In a world that's systematically eroding our capacity for sustained attention, how do we stay genuinely tuned in when it matters most?
This episode introduces a practical framework for sharpening your attention in the room. Drawing on the work of philosopher Simone Weil, who called attention the rarest form of generosity, Digby explores why treating attention as a deliberate leadership practice is one of the most powerful things you can do right now.
In this episode, we cover:
Why our capacity for sustained attention is under serious pressure and what that means for leadersThe four lenses of attention: personal, relational, directional, and contextualHow to read what's happening in a room and respond well when it countsPractical ways to apply each lens in your next conversation or meetingThree reflection questions to help you identify which lens you lean on and which you tend to neglectOther references
Stolen Focus | Johan HariFour Lenses DownloadHow to Read the Room Blog versionCheck out my services and offerings https://www.digbyscott.com/
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What if the friction in your team isn't a strategy problem? What if it isn't a structure problem either? What if it's a conversation you've been avoiding, a truth no one has been willing to name, or simply the widening gap between what gets said in the meeting room and what gets said in the corridor afterwards?
Most leaders invest enormous energy into policy, process, and planning, trusting that the culture will follow. But culture isn't built in documents. It's built in the thousands of conversations happening, or not happening, every single day.
Emma Gibbens is a strategic communications expert, author of Anatomy of Conversation, and someone who has spent her career helping leaders and organisations have the honest, courageous conversations that actually shift things. With a background in international political campaigning across multiple countries and cultures, Emma brings a rare combination of directness and warmth. She understands, from the inside, how conversations can build bridges or quietly erode them and she's passionate about what becomes possible when we stop avoiding what most needs to be said.
In this episode, you'll explore:
How conversations function as the invisible infrastructure of culture, shaping what's possible long before strategy is ever implementedWhy the cost of silence can be just as damaging as the cost of brutal honesty, and what leaders consistently underestimate about bothHow to distinguish constructive honesty from brutal honesty, and why the difference lives in intention rather than contentWhy creating a deliberate, structured container for difficult conversations is far more effective than letting them seep into gossip and corridor chatterHow awareness of power dynamics transforms the conversations you lead, and what stepping out of the content and into the role of host actually looks likeWhy knowing what you want, and preparing your energy, matters as much as anything you say in a difficult conversationHow fitting in and belonging are not the same thing, and what it takes to build cultures where people bring their full selvesReferences:
Brené Brown: Belonging vs Fitting InAdam Grant: The "Mount Stupid" ModelMurmurations (Starlings)Georgia Murch EpisodeOscar Trimboli EpisodeAnatomy of a Conversation | Emma GibbensWhite Paper | Emma GibbensTimestamps:
(00:00) - Conversations as Cultural Infrastructure
(21:24) - Conversations as Core Business Process
(28:45) - Creating a Feedback-Rich Culture
(29:59) - The Role of Conversation Containers
(32:10) - Power Dynamics in Conversations
(40:11) - Resolving Friction Through Conversation
You can find Emma at:
Website: www.emmagibbens.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-gibbens/
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How many leadership books have you read this year? Now here's the harder question: how many hours have you spent genuinely studying the people you lead?
For most leaders, there's a significant gap between those two answers. And that gap, more than almost anything else, explains leadership failure. The best leaders don't just consume content about leadership. They become students of humanity, curious, patient, and unrelenting in their effort to understand what makes people tick.
In this episode, you'll discover why reading the room matters more than reading the latest leadership title, how Harvard researcher Amy Edmondson's work on psychological safety points back to how well leaders understand fear in human beings, and why calibrating yourself is every bit as important as reading others.
You'll walk away with:
Why the gap between leadership learning and people-studying is costing you and your teamThe two directions of study that every effective leader needs to develop: outward and inwardWhat Peter Drucker's landmark Harvard Business Review essay "Managing Oneself" tells us about the rigour of self-knowledgeA surfing metaphor that reframes what it means to lead with fluency rather than forceFour practical ideas you can start using today to become a more astute student of the people around youThe distinction between caring about your people and actually studying themWhether you're leading a large organisation or a small team, this episode is an invitation to treat the people around you as your greatest source of learning. Because you can't read the room if you don't know how you distort it.
Check out my services and offerings at https://www.digbyscott.com/
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Have you ever stopped to consider that the image you project as a capable, in-control leader might actually be the very thing keeping your people from truly connecting with you? There's a particular kind of isolation that comes with always having it together. And if you're honest with yourself, I wonder how much energy it costs you to maintain that facade and what it might be costing the people around you too.
What if the shift that changes everything in your leadership isn't about acquiring more knowledge or developing another competency, but about letting go of the performance? This episode is an exploration of what becomes possible when leaders trade the polished, textbook version of themselves for something more real. We dig into the relationship between authenticity and energy, vulnerability and performance, and why learning together with your team might be the most underrated leadership practice available to you right now. What's possible here when you stop trying to be the one with all the answers?
Rita Cincotta is a leadership expert, coach, and consultant with 25 years of experience supporting leaders across Australia. She's the founder of The Deliberate Leader, author of two books on leadership, and is currently pursuing a PhD to rigorously test whether deliberate leadership is genuinely distinct from other leadership approaches. Rita brings rare intellectual depth and disarming human warmth to this conversation and she models everything she talks about, right from the first moment. In this episode, you'll explore:
How the image of having it all together can quietly push your people further awayWhy reconnecting with your purpose as a leader is the source of the energy your team needs from youHow a single piece of feedback, being called a "textbook reader" and became a turning point in how Rita ledWhy psychological safety isn't just a culture initiative, but a daily practice that starts with youHow leading with an L plate changes the dynamic between you and your team in profound waysWhy balancing empathy with performance becomes easier, not harder, when you lead human firstHow vulnerability at a senior level creates a ripple effect that lifts the energy of an entire teamWhy contributing to the learning of others not having the answers is where lasting leadership impact livesTimestamps:
(00:00) - The Burden of Perception
(10:10) - The Shift to Authenticity
(20:47) - Embracing Vulnerability in Leadership
(26:47) - Human First: Balancing Performance and Empathy
(30:06) - The Messiness of Life and Leadership
(36:39) - Learning Together: The Power of Contribution
Other References
You are how you lead | Rita CincottaSwinburne University of TechnologyManaaki Tāngata | Victim Support NZHome and Away TV ShowMike House Podcast EpisodeJames McCulloch Podcast EpisodeDeal In Energy Blog Upgrade your Identity BlogForget Time Management, Master These Disciplines Instead BlogLeading Lasting ImpactYou can find Rita at:
Website: https://thedeliberateleader.com.au/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rita-cincotta-80a1263/
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Have you ever left an interaction at work feeling genuinely seen? And when did you last create that feeling for someone else?
Most leaders focus on strategy, capability, and performance. But the ones who build real loyalty, the ones whose people genuinely want to show up for, tend to share something far simpler: they pay attention to the human stuff. The greeting. The name. That moment of genuine connection in an otherwise ordinary day.
This episode starts with a story from an ordinary morning in a coffee shop that stopped me in my tracks. It's a story about two places, two very different choices, and what it reveals about the kind of leader you're choosing to be every single day.
You'll discover why attention, not talent or strategy, is the real currency of trust, how the smallest interactions shape loyalty more than most leaders realise, and why making people feel seen doesn't require anything extraordinary. It just requires intention.
I'll walk you through:
Why the difference between a leader people want to follow and one they don't often has nothing to do with skill or resourcesHow a headmaster in a school of 900 kids used one simple practice to shape the people around himThe distinction between doing excellent work and giving people your attention — and why both matterTwo honest questions to sit with about how seen you make your people feelWhy this doesn't need to be big stuff — it just needs to be human stuffWhether you're leading a large organisation or a small team, this episode is a gentle reminder that the most impactful thing you can do today might take less than thirty seconds.
Check out my services and offerings at https://www.digbyscott.com/
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What if the strategies gathering dust in your organisation aren't the problem, but rather the shadow strategies everyone's actually following?
You know the ones. The unspoken "work harder, work longer, make more money" approach that contradicts your official commitment to innovation and people-centred leadership. That tension between what you say you're doing and what's actually happening costs more than productivity. It costs truth. And when organisations can't tell themselves the truth about what's really going on, they plateau in ways that feel both frustrating and invisible.
This conversation explores a different way forward, one that honours healthy friction over comfort, embodied wisdom over abstract strategy, and possibility over certainty.
Melissa Clark-Reynolds brings a rare combination of street-smart entrepreneurship and rigorous futures thinking to help leaders navigate complexity with both imagination and pragmatism. Melissa is a street smart futurist who started university at 15, built and sold multiple tech companies, and was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the tech sector. She's trained at Stanford's Institute for the Future and the UK's School for International Futures, bringing both rigorous methodology and practical wisdom to her work with organisations navigating uncertain futures.
In this conversation, you'll discover:
How to identify the "shadow strategy" your organisation is actually following beneath the official one, and why naming this incongruence is the first step toward real transformationWhy living in possibility rather than certainty opens more pathways forward than any five-year plan, and what questions like "I wonder" and "how might we" make possibleHow embodied strategy reveals truths that spreadsheets and presentations hide, and what happens when teams physically experience the difference between growth, transformation, and collapseWhy curiosity combined with commitment to excellence creates the conditions for continuous improvement, rather than the confident mediocrity that keeps organisations stuckHow to reframe the past as an empowering platform rather than a weight to escape from, particularly through bicultural and indigenous perspectives on whakapapa and timeWhat it means to find your tribe, the people who challenge you with love and compassion, see something more in you, and give you invitations to greatness rather than comfortable reinforcementWhy effective leadership means knowing whether you want to be right or you want to be effective, and how bringing the full triangle of inspirers, doers, planners, and storytellers creates sustainable impactHow to embrace your outlierness as a superpower rather than moderating yourself into mediocrity, and why the world needs the juiciness of your weirdnessOther References:
Elisabeth Kübler-RossSohail InayatullahJennifer Garvey BergerDavid Snowden - Cynefin frameworkInstitute for the FutureStanford UniversitySchool for International FuturesCultivating LeadershipCasual Layered Analysis FrameworkEpisode 22 with Jennifer Garvey BergerEpisode 26 with Kirsten PattersonEpisode 17 with Derek SiversTimestamps:
(00:00) - The Power of Healthy Friction
(13:32) - Finding Your Tribe
(20:39) - Embodying Strategy in Organisations
(25:12) - Incongruence in Organisational Strategies
(30:23) - Living in Possibility: Leadership Mindset
(32:27) - Reframing Time: Past, Present, and Future
You can find Melissa at:
Website: https://www.melissaclarkreynolds.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissaclarkr/
Check out my services and offerings https://www.digbyscott.com/
Subscribe to my newsletter https://www.digbyscott.com/subscribe
Follow me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/digbyscott/
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Do you have a network? Of course you do. But is it the one you actually need? For most leaders, the honest answer is probably not — and it's not because you don't care about relationships. It's because you've never thought about them quite this way.
In this episode, I explore why the word "networking" can feel a bit icky, and why that reaction might be costing you the impact you're trying to create. I share a simple but powerful framework for thinking about the nine distinct roles people can play in your network, and why having a balanced set of those relationships, deliberately cultivated, can accelerate your progress and keep you grounded while you do it.
In this episode, you'll discover:
Why leaders often resist building networks and what's really behind that resistanceThe nine distinct roles people can play in your network (and why balance matters)What a "door opener" and a "critical friend" actually look like in practiceWhy the quality of your relationships, not the size of your network, determines your impactHow to start assessing the strength of your own network using a free diagnostic toolReferences:
Network Diagnostic Mike House Podcast EpisodeCheck out my services and offerings https://www.digbyscott.com/
Subscribe to my newsletter https://www.digbyscott.com/subscribe
Follow me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/digbyscott/
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What if the moment you're told you've lost your job isn't the time to narrow your focus, but to widen it? When everything in you is screaming to grab control, shore up certainty, and solve the problem immediately, what would it take to do the opposite? To put down your phone, pick up your camera, and walk into the unfamiliar streets of a city that feels both beautiful and unsafe?
This conversation with Dr. Chris McKeown invites us into a different way of understanding leadership under pressure. Chris is both a photographer and an energy consultant—a combination that might seem random until you realise that both practices are about the same thing: knowing where to put your attention, understanding depth of field, and recognising that widening the aperture lets in more light.
When Chris lost his employment contract while sitting in Havana, he didn't rush to fix it. He grabbed his camera and walked. What he discovered wasn't distraction—it was something far more powerful. The neuroscience of awe. The practice of presence. And the recognition that our nervous systems are so jacked up by algorithms, back-to-back Zoom meetings, and the relentless pressure to perform, that we've forgotten how to stop.
Here's what you'll discover:
How widening the aperture—literally and metaphorically—helps you lead through uncertainty more effectively than controlling every detailWhy forcing yourself to stop isn't a luxury but essential infrastructure for doing hard things as leadersHow the anterior cingulate cortex connects awe experiences to empathy, compassion, and the ability to make difficult decisionsWhy successful CEOs all have "opposite worlds"—creative practices outside work that aren't optionalHow back-to-back meetings compound stress in your autonomic nervous system in ways your conscious mind doesn't registerWhy "holding space" for others might be more powerful than solving their problemsHow Chris's photography creates lasting impact in hospital rooms—and what that teaches us about legacy beyond our presenceWhy the simple practice of looking up activates the default mode network and changes how you thinkOther References
The Creative Act: A Way of Being | Rick RubinThe Mindful Body: Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health | Ellen LangerAtomic Habits | James ClearReligion for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion | Alain de BottonStolen Focus | Johann HariPeak Experiences & Hierarchy of Needs | Abraham MaslowAnterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC)Katie Hair Career CoachingKatie Hair Podcast EpisodeTe Papa MuseumChris’s substackTimestamps:
(00:00) - Creative Clarity in Old Havana
(08:52) - Widening the Aperture: Leadership Lessons
(14:24) - The Challenge of Attention in Modern Life
(19:45) - The Neuroscience of Awe and Leadership
(23:11) - The Importance of Creative Outlets for Leaders
(36:14) - The Impact of Art and Photography in Healing Spaces
You can find Chris at:
Website: nzenergyconsultants.com
Photography: chrismckeown.photography
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismckeown/
Check out my services and offerings https://www.digbyscott.com/
Subscribe to my newsletter https://www.digbyscott.com/subscribe
Follow me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/digbyscott/
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When Mike House said "mentoring is any interaction that has the possibility of a disproportionate long lasting impact," something shifted for me. Not a formal programme. Not a monthly calendar booking. Just any moment where you notice something worth naming and find the courage to say it.
Yet we've made mentoring too formal, too time-intensive, and frankly, too heavy. We think it requires being the guru with all the answers, which means we miss the moments that actually matter.
This episode introduces five practical roles that any leader at any level can play to create those moments of disproportionate impact. Not theory. Not the corporate version of mentoring that looks good in annual reports but doesn't change much. Just ways of showing up that help others grow their capability.
I'll walk you through:
Why mentoring isn't about knowledge transfer but about creating conditions where growth becomes almost inevitableThe People Developer role: how to listen deeply, ask powerful questions, and challenge respectfully without diminishing confidenceThe Cheerleader role: reflecting back people's brilliance when the daily grind makes them lose sight of their own capabilityThe Path Clearer role: removing unnecessary friction and helping people navigate organizational politics more easilyThe Door Opener role: using your network and position to create opportunities that would otherwise remain invisible or out of reachThe Context Provider role: showing the bigger picture so people can transform isolated decisions into strategic movesWhich role to focus on first and how to practice it without adding hours to your calendarThis isn't about adding another development programme to your already long list of initiatives. It's about recognizing that if you're serious about leading lasting impact—about creating organizations that don't depend on you being the hero—then mentoring is how you build systems that think without you, adapt without you, and continue creating value long after you've moved on.
Whether you're formally mentoring one person or trying to build a culture where everyone develops everyone else, this framework will help you notice what's happening around you and choose to engage with it in ways that grow others' capability.
References:
Download the Five Ways to Mentor One-Pager: https://digbyscott.com/mentorroles
Episode referenced: 55. Chasing Certainty, Guerrilla Mindfulness, and Teachable Moments | Mike House - https://dig-deeper.captivate.fm/episode/interview-chasing-certainty-guerrilla-mindfulness-and-teachable-moments-mike-house
Episode referenced: 50. Listening beyond words and choosing what to say no to | Oscar Trimboli - https://dig-deeper.captivate.fm/episode/50-listening-beyond-words-and-choosing-what-to-say-no-to-oscar-trimboli
Solocast referenced: Four Questions That Change Everything - https://dig-deeper.captivate.fm/episode/43-the-four-questions-that-transform-leadership-conversations-what-what-is-what-if-and-what-now
Check out my services and offerings at https://www.digbyscott.com/
Subscribe to my newsletter at https://www.digbyscott.com/subscribe
Follow me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/digbyscott/
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What if chasing certainty is actually making you less certain? Most leaders look outward for stability when everything's shifting, but that external focus keeps them perpetually off-balance. When the environment refuses to cooperate with our need for predictability, where do we turn?
This conversation explores a different kind of certainty: the kind that lives inside your team's clarity about who they are, not just what they do. Mike House brings an unexpected lens to leadership development, drawing from 20 years as a survival instructor watching people navigate genuine uncertainty in the outback. He's discovered that the same principles that help someone thrive when stranded with a soapbox-sized survival kit apply when we're leading through complexity.
What's possible when we shift from seeking certainty in circumstances to building it through identity and practice?
Mike spent two decades running what National Geographic called "the toughest thing outside the military anywhere in the world," dropping people into the Australian outback with minimal resources. Now he helps leaders and organisations navigate uncertainty by developing what matters most: the ability to respond rather than react, to spot moments of disproportionate impact, and to create systems that don't need them. He challenges conventional thinking about development, and shows that the most powerful growth often happens in 30-second exchanges we're walking right past.
In this conversation, you'll discover:
• How guerrilla mindfulness, a three-breath practice, can shift your leadership in moments of pressure
• Why looking for certainty in the environment will always leave you more uncertain
• What makes brief mentoring moments more powerful than formal development programmes
• How the gap between circumstance and response is trainable, not fixed
• Why the best mentors might be those creating systems that don't need them
• What survival priorities can teach us about leading through uncertainty
• How to develop the courage to act on teachable moments when you spot them
• Why purpose and identity create more certainty than any strategic plan
Timestamps:
(00:00) - Navigating Uncertainty in Leadership
(17:44) - The Power of Mentoring Moments
(32:12) - Adaptability in Uncertainty
(35:24) - Survival Skills for Business
(39:42) - Creating Conditions for Growth
(43:27) - Identifying Teachable Moments
Other References:
Pilbara RegionBox BreathingEmotions wheelfMRI (Functional Resonance Imaging)The Five B’s for Thriving at WorkYou can find Mike at:
Website: mikehouse.com.au
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/themikehouse/
Check out my services and offerings https://www.digbyscott.com/
Subscribe to my newsletter https://www.digbyscott.com/subscribe
Follow me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/digbyscott/
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