Making sense of yourself and with others
This is Daniel's core concept. Leaders must make sense of themselves (reactions, biases, stress, resilience) and, at the same time, make sense with others (reading people, systems and changing conditions), with purpose at the centre. Daniel carries it in his own voice. Guests supply the inner-work and team angles.
How it developed: It began as four outer skills around purpose. Inner work arrived through guests (E07, E25) and became an explicit pair in E18. By E36 Daniel openly says the inner side was added after the research.
The thread's title and description are AI-written, drawn from the episodes below. The quotations are verbatim from the episode audio, each linked to the moment it was said.
What was said
“would be exploration and mapmaking, storytelling and narrative development, invitation and improvisation, and adaptation and collaboration.”
“I, I believe strongly that the first responsibility of a leader is to heal themselves.”
“Well, the easiest way of answering that is because no one else is responsible for that, right? It, it really is the person at the top who, is ultimately, responsible for helping the organization that they lead to understand what's happening around them”
“Leadership failure, I've come to believe, often begins when these two forms of sensemaking disconnect.”
“And for me, a, a big part of how you deal with that complex issue is not only how you learn yourself about it, But also how others are learning about it and comparing that, you know, the elements, with others. Some of that is around storytelling, some of it is around how people map out the problem.”
“when I started, on, on, on, on my research, and when I came up with my dissertation, that, actually making sense for yourself wasn't a big part of it. But I've continued in discussions with leaders since then,”
Episodes in this thread
- Getting Messy with Daniel Atlin 27 August 2025
- Leading Through Healing | Dr. Benoit-Antoine Bacon 6 October 2025
- Universities at the Boundary | Meric Gertler 15 January 2026
- Making Sense of Making Sense | Why the mess matters 4 March 2026
- What shapes the leaders we become? | Nkulu Madonko 17 June 2026
- How to Lead When You Don't Have Control (Lessons from 25 University Presidents) with Daniel Atlin 5 July 2026
- Daniel Atlin- Radical Collaboration in the face of Complexity 29 July 2026
- Sir Anton Muscatelli on Leading Public Institutions Through Complexity, Slow Growth, and the AI Age 16 September 2026
- Leading in Messy Situations | Ep. 98 | The Science of Leadership 22 September 2026