Dig Deeper

Digby Scott
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  • Management
  • Updated Biweekly

There's no one way to lead. Yet we need to find a way. Our own way. And it can be hard to get right. As we find our way to lead it can be useful to listen to how others found theirs. Each fortnight, I’ll share a rich, unhurried conversation with someone who’s leaned into and learned from the challenges of leadership, change, and life while staying true to themselves. You'll get to experience me doing what I do best: asking the surface-piercing questions to help people see what they couldn't see before. Including you. Learn more about my courses and get more resources at https://www.digbyscott.com/ And follow me on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/digbyscott/

  1. [Interview] From Imposter to Authentic, Owning Your Strengths, and Leading Lasting Impact | Erin Judge

    1d ago

    [Interview] From Imposter to Authentic, Owning Your Strengths, and Leading Lasting Impact | Erin Judge

    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 expertise Timestamps: (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 in You can find Erin at: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-j-16001153 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/

    45 min
  2. [Solocast] Leadership as an Act of Attention

    Jun 8

    [Solocast] Leadership as an Act of Attention

    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 day Other references Leadership as an Act of Attention Blog Post 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/

    11 min
  3. [Interview] How to Measure What Matters, and the Gift of Legacy | Grant Yonge

    Jun 1

    [Interview] How to Measure What Matters, and the Gift of Legacy | Grant Yonge

    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 leader Timestamps: (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 Richards You can find Grant at: Website: https://theywa.org.au/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grant-yonge-b6a30924/ 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/

    46 min
  4. [Solocast] What Will Outlast You?

    May 25

    [Solocast] What Will Outlast You?

    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 once If 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/ 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/

    6 min
  5. [Interview] From Hero to Host, Letting Go, and Leading with Impact | A Dig Deeper Compilation

    May 18

    [Interview] From Hero to Host, Letting Go, and Leading with Impact | A Dig Deeper Compilation

    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 us Timestamps: (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 power Connect with the guests: DK: Website Sir Ashley Bloomfield: LinkedIn James McCulloch: Website | LinkedIn Simon Dowling: Website | LinkedIn Callum McKirdy: Website | LinkedIn 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/

    31 min
  6. [Solocast] Fear: Name It, Frame It, Tame It

    May 11

    [Solocast] Fear: Name It, Frame It, Tame It

    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 lead References Fear - Name It Frame It Tame It worksheetStart Close In | David Whyte 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/

    8 min
  7. [Interview] Intergenerational Healing, Translation, and the Courage to Lead | Christian Penny

    May 4

    [Interview] Intergenerational Healing, Translation, and the Courage to Lead | Christian Penny

    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 everything Timestamps: (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 exercise You can find Christian at: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-penny-54016515/ 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/

    41 min
  8. [Solocast] Put Down the Mallet

    Apr 27

    [Solocast] Put Down the Mallet

    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/ Subscribe to my newsletter https://www.digbyscott.com/subscribe Follow me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/digbyscott/

    7 min
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About

There's no one way to lead. Yet we need to find a way. Our own way. And it can be hard to get right. As we find our way to lead it can be useful to listen to how others found theirs. Each fortnight, I’ll share a rich, unhurried conversation with someone who’s leaned into and learned from the challenges of leadership, change, and life while staying true to themselves. You'll get to experience me doing what I do best: asking the surface-piercing questions to help people see what they couldn't see before. Including you. Learn more about my courses and get more resources at https://www.digbyscott.com/ And follow me on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/digbyscott/

Information

  • Creator
    Digby Scott
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    74
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Digby Scott
  • Show Website
    Dig Deeper

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