Making Sense of Leadership

“lives must be lived forwards, but can only be understood backwards.”

“the reality is you actually have very little control in 2026 and going forward, right?”

“leadership can be lonely, but, you know, it is actually a team sport as well.”

“Because people are what makes an organization's mission come alive and actually produce the real ROI as well.”

“we need to ask more questions rather than rushing to judgment, right?”

“recognizing that control is not actually the only option and usually the preferable option, actually was liberating to them.”

“Yes, I see it's almost like a positive contagion, right?”

“I think, you know, leadership is, is a practice. It's, it's an art.”

“the two skills, you know, that are really so important these days are curiosity and improvisation as well. I think in an ever-changing world, you know, you've got to have leaders that can actually bring those two skills to the table and asking questions and trying to understand and navigate this ever-changing VUCA environment, right?”

“focusing on both these elements, the making sense with others and making sense with yourself, you know, is a process that needs to actually be developed almost into leadership hygiene. And, you can do, you can, you know, do this as a group, as well as an individual”

“so I spent 30 years in complex institutions from, universities and colleges here in Canada, government and into cooperative sector.”

“And what I realized is that, you know, throughout that process that, I didn't actually understand a lot of what truly motivated leaders to actually get their change Done and, and how change was really, operating on the ground.”

“what I've done is I've sort of created a model that's based on, you know, you know, research and, and, and also, interviews with, with a whole bunch of different leaders, across different sectors.”

“focusing on both these elements, the making sense with others and making sense with yourself, you know, is a process that needs to actually be developed almost into leadership hygiene.”

“you can do, you can, you know, do this as a group, as well as an individual, in order to actually, you know, build those skills, in order to build sort of, you know, a better sort of sense-making, you know, senior team, a better sense-making organization.”

“I've also actually got my own little podcast where I'm talking to leaders, you know, trying to make sense of things. It's called Messy with Daniel Atlin.”

“I really now have got sort of a passion for actually talking about how leadership is a combination of, of making sense of yourself at the same time as traditional sort of leadership, focuses as well.”

“So the first side of it is really, I think, trying to make better sense of yourself, and that's actually understanding how you respond under stress. It's actually seeing and noticing what you're feeling as well.”

“Because so often we react in terms of tropes or things that we actually just naturally react, and I think we have to actually take that into account because that actually affects how others see us”

“we bring to the table our lived experience. And part of that lived experience is actually, you know, not just the jobs you've had, it's in the roles you've had, it's how you've dealt with failure, it's how you've dealt with, you know, your family, perhaps, situation, and sometimes personal trauma, too.”

“So sometimes you're going to have to actually think and actually question why you, why you actually are behaving or feeling that way. It may actually be something that's been triggered by a past emotion or something that's occurred,”

“And that's actually balancing, you know, you know, those two elements, one of which is actually making sense of yourself, and the other one is actually making sense of others as well. And you need to do two, both those things, you know, at the same time in an organization to make things happen.”

“organizations like companies and certainly, you know, complex places like universities, hospitals, and nonprofits have to really find a way to shift that story to resonate with that individual and connect.”

“leadership can be lonely, but, you know, it is actually a team sport as well. And it's about aligning resources. That's what leadership really is. It's about aligning people,”

“the two skills, you know, that are really so important these days are curiosity and improvisation as well. I think in an ever-changing world, you know, you've got to have leaders that can actually bring those two skills to the table”

“by asking questions, you're able to, I think, to get at the heart in some ways, be able to get better alignment and get people on board of change as well.”

“by asking questions, you can realize it's not the same situation that, you know, you experienced in the past. That person, you know, you may be actually assuming, you know, things about that person that are very different than in reality.”

“You know, you can ask a question to be able to sort of try and get a person to even reframe their ideas and what's behind that as well. And that way you can make them perhaps a little bit more open to a different point of view or to listen as well.”

“And I think today in our society, we need to ask more questions rather than rushing to judgment, right? And exercising those skills are going to make us stronger employees, stronger leaders.”

“And then sometimes when people actually answer that question, say things in a different way, there's an aha. There's actually sort of, sort of a, you know, a light bulb that goes off”

“But the reality is you actually have very little control in 2026 and going forward, right? The world is changing. It's in constant change.”

“And the very belief that we can actually control things the way we used to is actually, I think, I think an archaic model.”

“So the ability for you to actually bring people along by coordinating and aligning people, you know, I think that's often, I think, the more power that you have as a leader these days.”

“because if you have a control mindset, you're, you're, you're not going to be able to, to, to deal with failure as much as, as others do.”

“I almost describe the leadership as a mess because it is constantly evolving. It's ambiguous, you know, it's volatile, it's always shifting, and it's always adapting to the people in the environment around you.”

“during my research, you know, I recognized that actually even just naming the mess of leadership became actually so powerful to the people I interviewed when I shared that back with them. They said thank you because we were sort of trying to actually control things.”

“the great thing about strategic plans and visions and all those things is they're great at actually getting these documents that are very central in providing a direction and a frame for an organization. But there's so many things that aren't captured there”

“the top actually has got to believe in this and because culture actually does have to start at the top, right? It's a key part of that. And, and by doing so, you can model that behavior that can actually be adopted by, by the entire organization as well.”

“And when you, you know, get a person that's, that's aligned with, with the purpose of the organization, that means you've got, you know, a talent that actually can be really, I think, growing into the future and supporting things.”