Messy with Daniel Atlin

Strategist and researcher Zora Artis on the real work of alignment.

Leadership is messy, ongoing, and stubbornly resistant to five-step programs. What does it take for people to move forward together when they see the world differently?

Strategist, facilitator, coach, and researcher Zora Artis joins Daniel Atlin to explore what alignment means, what it costs when it is missing, and why sustaining it requires continual care and attention.

Zora’s story begins with a childhood moving between Yugoslavia and Australia, learning to read unfamiliar environments and find belonging while retaining…

Eight jazz principles for leading in uncertain, unscripted environments.

This episode is for leaders who feel the ground shifting beneath them and who must keep moving forward despite having no reliable script, no guaranteed outcome, and no clear map.

In Part 2 of our conversation, Frank Barrett, author of Say Yes to the Mess, draws on jazz improvisation to offer a practical framework for leading well in exactly those conditions.

Frank walks through eight jazz-derived leadership practices: mastering the art of unlearning (following Sonny Rollins' legendary retreat to the Brooklyn Bridge),…

Jazz pianist and organizational scholar Frank Barrett on play, shame, and finding your voice.

This episode is for anyone who has ever felt held back by a voice telling them they are doing it wrong.

Frank Barrett, jazz pianist, organizational scholar, and author of Yes to the Mess, traces the roots of improvisation back to where it really begins: childhood, play, shame, and the difference between learning that is alive and learning that is rule-bound. If you love music, suspect that fear of mistakes is quietly limiting you, or want to understand what jazz can genuinely teach leaders about…

Sensemaking leadership as a team sport.

This episode is for anyone who cares about the future of public institutions and what it takes to lead them well in a world of slow growth, eroding trust, and rapid technological change.

Sir Anton Muscatelli, economist, former Principal of the University of Glasgow, and current President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, shares a rare combination: deep academic expertise, two decades of institutional leadership, and an immigrant's perspective shaped by childhood across Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK.

Anton lays out a three-part framework for…

Kathy Biondi on 40 years of leadership in action and navigating uncertainty

This episode is for leaders and aspiring leaders in the public sector who want a frank, experience-grounded conversation about what it really takes to navigate organisational upheaval, closures, mergers and cultural change. Kathy Biondi spent nearly forty years in the Ontario government and closed a college campus, led teams through mergers, and directed a far-reaching operations branch in the Correctional Ministry. Her lessons are practical, humble, and immediately transferable.

Kathy unpacks the moments that…

Leadership, identity, and the human need to belong.

In this deeply personal episode of Messy, Daniel Atlin sits down with executive coach and leadership practitioner Nkulu Madonko to explore the often-overlooked relationship between identity, belonging, and leadership.

Drawing on a remarkable life journey that spans Zambia, Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom, and South Africa, Nkulu reflects on the formative experiences that shaped him — from being sent to boarding school at age six, to navigating questions of race, culture, and belonging, to helping leaders make sense of complexity in their…

Rebalance the world and celebrate our interdependence.

Henry Mintzberg, one of the world's most influential management thinkers, makes the case that society is dangerously out of balance and that every one of us has a role in fixing it.

This episode is for anyone who feels cynical, overwhelmed, or immobilised by the state of the world but is still looking for a reason to act.

Mintzberg, now in his mid-eighties and still publishing, argues that communism did not lose to capitalism in 1991, it simply collapsed under its own weight. The dangerous myth that capitalism triumphed has licensed a…

President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester on AI, philosophy, and institutional change.

This episode is for people who are struggling to see how transformative change, especially AI adoption, can be introduced without fracturing trust or triggering institutional paralysis.

Duncan Ivison, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester, one of the UK's largest and most comprehensive universities, in conversation with Daniel Atlin, explains how he is leading significant change: not by minimizing disruption, but by leaning into it deliberately and bringing the…

And meeting them where they're at.

In this episode of Messy, Daniel Atlin sits down with Mary Anne Chambers, former Ontario cabinet minister, banking executive, and lifelong advocate for equity and access, to explore what it truly means to lead in complex, purpose and people-centered systems.

From her early experiences growing up in Jamaica, where she learned to understand lives different from her own, to her work as a bank executive, to a member of government and minister shaping policies that expanded access to education and childcare, Mary Anne reflects on the power of empathy,…

Don't be afraid to try something new.

What does it take to lead in systems that are complex, constrained, and constantly changing?

Daniel Atlin sits down with David Agnew, President of Seneca Polytechnic, whose career has spanned politics, finance, international development, and higher education. One common is stepping into organisations at moments of tension, transition, and uncertainty.

This conversation explores what leadership really looks like in public institutions, where the stakes are high, the problems are rarely neat, and the pressure to act is constant. It’s about navigating…

Public Service = Designing Fairness at Scale.

In this episode of Messy, Daniel Atlin is joined by Sara Hurley, former Chief Dental Officer for England, a leader whose career spans frontline clinical care, military service, and senior government leadership. Few have operated as consistently at the intersection of individual care, institutional complexity, and public policy.

Sara offers a deeply reflective account of leadership in the mess.
Drawing on her experience during COVID, she describes what it feels like to make decisions when there are no good options — only trade-offs. In these…

Rethinking higher education — and finding your purpose.

What if the real problem with higher education isn’t funding, technology, or rankings, but the model itself?

In this episode, Daniel Atlin speaks with Tim Blackman, former Vice-Chancellor and President of the Open University, about whether the dominant university model is simply out of sync with modern life.

While most universities still organise learning around a single intensive period in early adulthood, Tim argues that the future lies in lifelong learning, shorter credentials, and education woven throughout people’s working lives.…

This episode is different.

There’s no guest. It’s just me, Daniel Atlin, answering the question I ask every leader who comes on Messy: to riff off the Kierkegaard quote “Life must be lived forwards, but can only be understood backwards."

I look back at the moments that shaped my curiosity about leadership, complexity, and what I now call “the mess.” I talk about growing up between cultures and religions, about realising I was gay in the 1980s, about feeling different and discovering that everyone carries a backstory you can’t see.

After senior roles across government, cooperative…

If you're not part of the problem, you can't be part of the solution.

In this episode of Messy, Daniel Atlin sits down with global facilitator and systems practitioner Adam Kahane to explore what it really means to collaborate when agreement feels impossible.

They explore collaboration across deep divides, the courage to see our own part in the problem, and how change often starts in the smallest crack in a hardened system.

Drawing from his newly revised second edition of "Collaborating with the Enemy", Adam challenges the romantic idea that collaboration is always the right answer.…

Leading across Australia, the UK, and New Zealand.

What does it mean to lead a university when trust in public institutions is eroding and the rules keep changing?

In this episode of Messy, I speak with Iain Martin, President and Vice-Chancellor of Deakin University, about navigating leadership in the thick of complexity. From global rankings and political scrutiny to AI, massification, and polarisation, the conversation surfaces the often unseen pressures shaping modern universities.

The “dance floor and balcony” metaphor comes from the adaptive leadership work of Ron Heifetz and Marty…

A little playbook, a little Picasso.

Healthcare is often treated as a hospital story, until you need care at home.

In this episode of Messy, I am joined by John Yip, President & CEO of SE Health, to talk about leading at the intersection of health systems, digital transformation, workforce innovation, and social purpose.

John shares how his early work in the digital economy still echoes today, why home and community care is both essential and misunderstood, and what it takes to build alignment across a complex, distributed organisation operating in Canada’s fragmented provincial…

Sensemaking and Placemaking.

In June 2025, Meric Gertler completed a 12-year term as President of the University of Toronto.

I had the privilege and good fortune to first meet and work with Meric Gertler in 2007 when he was then the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto. What stood out most was his curious, thoughtful, and deeply empathetic approach to leadership.

Now, 18 years later, I thoroughly enjoyed our "Messy" conversation. A great deal of it explores how sensemaking is a crucial but often unrecognised function of university presidents, involving…

Lasting impact happens inside people and adaptation is the critical skill.

“That trusted network of peers is what keeps leaders standing when the work feels overwhelming.”

In this episode of Messy with Daniel Atlin, I have a conversation with Heather Anderson (CEO) and David Kamau (Chief Program Officer) from Global Health Corps to explore what leadership really looks like when the stakes are high, the data is incomplete, and the path forward isn’t clear.

GHC was built on a core belief that systems don’t have agency, people do. It is focused on building capacity in health systems through…

Hospitals are messy, complex, adaptive systems.

In this episode, I speak with Mark Walton, President and CEO of Guelph General Hospital. Together, we explore what leadership looks like inside one of the messiest systems we have: a community hospital under relentless pressure. We'll learn lessons to get through the mess.

Mark traces his health care journey from a 17-year-old ward clerk to finally realising his teenage dream of becoming a hospital CEO and why he cried in the middle of Canadian Tire when he got the call offering him the role of his dreams.

He makes the case that hospitals…

Stewardship in an Age of Noise.

Executive Director of Communications

“When leadership goes wrong is when people cling to the baton — and you have to peel their cold, dead hands off it."

In this episode, I sit down with Tania Rhodes-Taylor, Executive Director of Communications and External Affairs at King’s College London, and Chair of the World 100 Reputation Network, to explore what it really takes to lead in a purpose-driven institution in turbulent times.

She shares her origin story, being the first in her family to go to university, her experience and perspective gained from working…

Leading through renewal and reinvention.

What does it take to lead after an institutional trauma and how to do this work without making it about you?

Dr. Lynn Wells, President and Vice-Chancellor of Laurentian University, traces a steady path from crisis to renewal: changing a damaging narrative, rebuilding trust, and putting “student-first” at the centre of every hard call.

Drawing on her earlier chapters at other institutions, from reconciliation work at First Nations University of Canada to student-centred leadership at MacEwan and pandemic decision-making at Brock — Lynn shows how…

Balancing heart and mind.

This “Messy” conversation is a bit of a departure from previous episodes as I talk to a bank executive in the Middle East who also works with NGOs and charities.

Daniel Sharaiha grew up and lives in Jordan with one foot in business and the other in the NGO world. That tension, he says, keeps him humble: his head and heart never quite fit neatly into either sector, and that’s exactly why he sees complexity and the mess of leadership clearly.

From welcoming millions of refugees in a water-scarce country to championing women’s participation in the workforce, Daniel…

Navigating the mess to find opportunities.

In a messy world, leadership doesn’t come with a roadmap — it comes with questions, courage, and relentless purpose.

In this rich and reflective conversation, Dr. Diana Beech, inaugural Director of the Finsbury Institute at City St George’s, University of London, explores her unconventional career path across academia, government, and policy and what it teaches about leading in complex, purpose-driven organisations.
Her story is one of adaptability, curiosity, and moral purpose, offering a grounded view of what leadership really looks like in the…

Know yourself: surrender to the mess.

What does it really mean to lead with authenticity? And how does healing your own wounds shape the way you show up as a leader?

In this powerful episode of MESSY, host Daniel Atlin sits down with Dr. Benoit-Antoine Bacon, President and Vice Chancellor of the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Bacon’s story and journey is anything but ordinary. He opens up about his unexpected rise from teaching psychology at Bishop’s University to leading one of the top universities in the world.

Along the way, he has faced and overcome deep personal challenges,…

Your identity is your superpower.

Tim McTiernan is Irish-Canadian and has extensive experience in social purpose organisations from governments (Ontario, Yukon, Ireland) and post-secondary institutions (University of Toronto, Canadore College, Ontario Tech).

In this Messy with Daniel Atlin podcast, I speak with Tim as he shares his life journey from growing up in Ireland with a Catholic father and Protestant mother to his career across various leadership roles in Canada. Tim reflects on being an "outsider" in various contexts and how this shaped his approach to leadership.

Tim provides…

Don't just shape the future - invent it!

Sheldon Levy is one of the most recognisable names in Canadian Post-Secondary having worked in senior leadership roles at the University of Toronto, York University, UOIT (now Ontario Tech) and President at Sheridan College, Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) and the private University: University Canada West. He also served as Deputy Minister of Training Colleges and Universities in the Ontario Government and as an advisor to the Canadian Minister of International Trade.

In this podcast, Sheldon's maverick and entrepreneurial…

It's all about the students and pedagogy.

Dr. Julia Christensen Hughes makes sense of her journey in higher education leadership, her insights on organisational change, and her experiences at the University of Guelph and Yorkville University.

Julia shares her early disappointments as an undergraduate student, which fuelled her passion for improving higher education.

She discusses her focus on purpose and aligning organisational behaviour and leadership with espoused values, drawing from her MBA and PhD studies. She talks about the precarious nature of innovation in public universities…

Join us for a conversation with Dr. Vivek Goel, President and Vice Chancellor of the University of Waterloo as he takes us on a journey through his diverse leadership experiences in healthcare, public health, and higher education. Discover how his medical background and public health expertise have shaped his unique approach to decision-making, both for individuals and communities alike.

In this episode, Dr. Goel dives into the essence of genuine leadership, keeping people at the centre, and illuminating why effective leaders are crucial for steering long-term strategic vision. He shares…

Ever wonder if leaders really matter in complex organizations?

I’m Daniel Atlin, an executive coach with over 30 years steering Canada’s universities, co-ops, and government sectors. In Messy, I dive into the chaotic world of purpose-driven leadership—think higher education, healthcare, and NGOs. Join me as I talk with global leaders about navigating stakeholder conflicts, geopolitical shifts, and crises, all while balancing influence over authority. It’s raw, it’s real, and it’s not for the faint of heart.

This is Messy - together we'll make sense of the mess