Dig Deeper

Digby Scott

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. [Solocast] What Will Outlast You?

    -1 ДН.

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

    18 МАЯ

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

    4 МАЯ

    [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 мин.
  4. [Interview] Making Work Meaningful, Letting Go of the Hero, and Legacy Now | Prina Shah

    20 АПР.

    [Interview] Making Work Meaningful, Letting Go of the Hero, and Legacy Now | Prina Shah

    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 asking Timestamps: (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 journal You can find Prina at: Website: https://www.prinashah.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prinashah/ 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/

    40 мин.
  5. [Interview] How to Name the Hard Thing, Honesty as Craft, and Belonging | Emma Gibbens

    6 АПР.

    [Interview] How to Name the Hard Thing, Honesty as Craft, and Belonging | Emma Gibbens

    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 selves References: Brené Brown: Belonging vs Fitting InAdam Grant: The "Mount Stupid" ModelMurmurations (Starlings)Georgia Murch EpisodeOscar Trimboli EpisodeAnatomy of a Conversation | Emma GibbensWhite Paper | Emma Gibbens Timestamps: (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/ 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/

    54 мин.

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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/

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