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 prize
- Why the newest person in the room might be the most valuable, and how to give them permission to speak
- How dialling your strengths up or down beats trying to become someone you're not
- Why every strength carries a shadow, and what it costs to hide behind the thing you're good at
- How understanding someone's motivation changes the way you influence them
- Why seeking out hard things, and views that rile you, builds the kind of resilience that lasts
- How to lead for impact that outlives your tenure, without needing the credit
- Why 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
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/
