How to Lead When You Don't Have Control (Lessons from 25 University Presidents) with Daniel Atlin
Most leadership training assumes you have authority. You set direction, people execute, metrics move. But what happens when you lead an organization where dozens of stakeholders compete for your attention, your ROI is not a stock price, and command-and-control gets you nowhere?
Daniel Atlin spent 30 years in senior roles across Canada's post-secondary, cooperative, and government sectors. After leaving executive life, he interviewed 25 university presidents and principals across the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand for his executive masters research at Oxford and HEC Paris. The question he wanted answered: how do leaders of complex, mission-driven institutions do their jobs without running from the building screaming?
The answer he found was sense-making. Not strategic planning, not perfect execution. The ability to interpret uncertainty and help others move forward without a set path.
What Is Sense-Making in Leadership?
Daniel breaks it into two parallel practices. Inner sense-making is the work you do on yourself: noticing how you show up, regulating your reactions, building resilience, and taking time to reflect. Outer sense-making is making sense with others: aligning stakeholders, nudging agreement, and creating direction together instead of dictating it. His research shows you cannot do one without the other.
What Separated the Presidents Who Navigated Disruption from the Ones Who Got Stuck
Three patterns emerged from his interviews. The successful leaders kept personal purpose and organizational purpose in sync. They spent more time listening and asking questions than being the source of all answers. And they accepted that change happens slowly, bringing people along rather than forcing outcomes. The leaders who reverted to command-and-control were the ones who struggled.
Why Your Job Is Not Your Identity
One of the most personal threads in this conversation: Daniel admits he sublimated his own character and agency to the institution during his executive years, and only saw it clearly after he left. If you derive your meaning from your title, a role change becomes an identity crisis. We dig into how leaders can build community outside their institution and separate who they are from what they do, before it's too late.
We also cover the political pressure on US universities, the funding squeeze in Canadian higher education, the tension between authenticity and empathy in public-facing roles, and two old-world concepts Daniel believes leaders need in the age of AI: the flaneur and the bricoleur.
Key Takeaways & Timestamps
[02:24] What sense-making actually means: Dealing with plausible scenarios and uncertainty rather than fixed plans, and why it requires giving up some control
[04:17] Inner vs. outer sense-making: The two-track practice every leader in a complex organization needs to run in parallel
[05:32] What separated successful presidents from stuck ones: Purpose alignment, asking more than answering, and moving slowly with people rather than fast without them
[08:50] The "Making Sense in the Mess" framework: Why university presidents thanked Daniel for finally naming the mess of their leadership reality
[10:56] Why complex organizations are different: Competing stakeholders, conflicting ROIs, and no stock price to hide behind
[17:17] The authenticity-empathy tension: Knowing your origin story, avoiding fake empathy, and pushing through personal attacks
[21:56] Escaping your job identity: Daniel's own admission about sublimating his character to the institution
[25:56] The first questions Daniel asks leaders in a mess: Understand the water you're in, get on the balcony, and use the power of the pause
[27:33] The flaneur and the bricoleur: Two skills leaders risk losing in the age of AI
Ready to See How You Actually Show Up as a Leader?
Inner sense-making starts with an honest look at yourself. Check out my coaching at coachfulcoaching.com and find out what your team sees that you don't.