Ep 186 - Dancing into Leadership: The Power of Embodied and Authentic Leadership with Daniel Ludevig

Have you ever wondered what it takes to be a leader worth following? In this compelling episode, host David Hall is joined by leadership coach Daniel Ludevig to uncover the secrets behind authentic and embodied leadership. Listeners will explore the essence of being a leader who inspires others, and navigates challenges, while maintaining unwavering self-worth.

Key takeaways from this episode include:
- Understanding the foundational qualities of a leader worth following: inspiring vision, strong influence, and undeniable authenticity.
- Learning how to use embodied leadership and business practices to develop powerful leadership skills.
- Embracing the journey of expanding comfort zones and developing new competencies while avoiding burnout.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone aspiring to lead with authenticity and impact. Tune in for transformative insights and practical strategies to elevate your leadership approach. Embrace the path of becoming a leader who earns genuine followership—and be strong.

Episode Link: QuietandStrong.com/186

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Daniel Ludevig is a leadership coach empowering professionals to become leaders worth following. With over 15 years of experience in leadership development and coaching. He’s worked with massively successful scale-ups as well as some of the largest global companies around the world, and has as his coaching clients the CEOs, executive leadership teams as well as younger leaders from those organizations. Through his work helping companies with culture change, transformation and resolving deep conflict and tensions, he’s seen first hand what works and doesn't when it comes to developing highly-functioning organizations, capable, inspiring leaders, and loyal, engaged teams.

Connect with Daniel:

Website: MoveLeadership.com

Socials: LinkedIn

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Contact the Host of the Quiet and Strong Podcast:

David Hall

Author, Speaker, Educator, Podcaster

quietandstrong.com
Gobio.link/quietandstrong
david [at] quietandstrong.com

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Transcript

Daniel Ludevig [00:00:00]:
But that is not the only leader, and I would love to break the myth of introverts not being able to be leaders. I would love to break the myths of quiet people not being leaders. I would even love to break the myth that people who are not well spoken and who maybe get nervous in front of groups and who don't like a lot of attention on themselves are not leaders because that is absolutely not true. And we need leaders who fill the full range of spectrum from extroverted to introverted, from externally processing to internally processing, from outgoing to more reserved, from immediately reactive to more reflective and thoughtful.

David Hall [00:00:50]:
Hello, and welcome to episode 186 of the Quiet and Strong podcast, especially for introverts. I'm your host, David Hall, and the creator of quietandstrong.com. This is a weekly podcast dedicated to understanding the strengths and needs of introverts and strategies for success. Introversion is not something to fix, but to be embraced. Normally, we will air each episode on a Monday. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite platform. Leave a review or a rating. That would mean a lot to me and help other people find the show.

David Hall [00:01:23]:
Tell a friend about the podcast and help get the word out there that introversion is a beautiful thing. Daniel Lutovic is a leadership coach empowering professionals to become leaders worth following. With over 15 years of experience in leadership development and coaching, he's worked with massively successful scale ups as well as some of the largest global companies around the world and has as his coaching clients the CEOs, executive leadership teams, as well as younger leaders from those organizations. Through his work helping companies with culture change, transformation, and resolving deep conflict intentions, he's seen firsthand what works and doesn't when it comes to developing highly functioning organizations, capable inspiring leaders, and loyal engaged teams. Alright. Well, welcome to the Quiet and Strong podcast, Daniel. Daniel, so good to have you on today.

Daniel Ludevig [00:02:27]:
Thank you, David. It's a pleasure to be here.

David Hall [00:02:29]:
Alright. We are gonna talk about your work, especially as a leadership coach. So let's start there. Tell us about your journey. Like, how, you know, how did you become a leadership coach?

Daniel Ludevig [00:02:41]:
Oh, so not expected in terms of the journey, like, totally through the back door, if I'm honest. So some parts of the journey makes sense looking back, but I think they things often make more sense in hindsight than they do in the moment. So I did study and have degrees in psychology and economics, but what I concluded after graduating university is that I didn't particularly want to work in either of those fields because I just found the separation between, especially in the psychology dimension, the separation between patient and therapist to just be so distant and and often kind of neutralized. And it just didn't appeal to me. And when I had had a few internships, I found myself really discouraged. But what I ended up doing instead was had a couple of jobs that opened up experiences around both working with people and business in a different capacity. So I did work in a cancer hospital for a few years, and that was a powerful experience around seeing people when they are really fighting for their lives, and what kind of human characteristics come out of that. And I did also work in architecture for a few years, which gave me a real sense of what it's like to work in a team, and what it's like to work in a in a company, and what it's like to be in relationships with different kinds of clients.

Daniel Ludevig [00:03:49]:
And both of those jobs left me feeling that I don't really want to stay in New York, which is where I'm from, and that I didn't really want to stay in a job that kept me working under fluorescent lights all day. I found myself, you know, with some of the best doctors in the world at that cancer hospital, and they felt to me like they were prisoners in many way of the insurance systems that they were part of. I was working for an incredible architect and found him to be also handcuffed to the will and whims of his clients and often not treated with the respect that he deserved, and I just found myself longing for something else. And at the same time, what I was encountering in New York were lots of other kinds of people who seemed to be living very different lives than the one that I was living. I was meeting dancers who, you know, worked on a cruise ship for half a year teaching dance lessons and then spent the other half of the year living freely off of the money that they had earned rent free. I was meeting farmers who were traveling around the world on these woofing farms and living on someone else's property and working outdoors in the sun all day, and it just felt like I needed a change. And in 2009, financial crisis, 2008, 2009, I got laid off from my architecture job, and that was an opportunity for me to either find another job and just keep doing the same thing that I'm doing, or take up an offer that a friend of mine had given me, which was to move to Germany, to Berlin, which at the time was really a cheap and very creative city, and start from scratch. And I took up this offer without really knowing what I was getting into, and it meant moving to a country I'd never visited.

Daniel Ludevig [00:05:25]:
It meant traveling with a backpack and a bicycle and nothing else. And that opened up a whole new door for me, a whole new chapter because I spent those first couple of years in Berlin exploring what is passion and what is profession if I design it from scratch. And it led me down a very unexpected path of opening up a hotel in Morocco for yoga and vegan food and dance for tourists who would come visit us. It led itself into conversations where some of those dance guests would say to me things like, you know, the way you teach dance and and I have a I have a background as a ballroom dancer. The way you teach dance is so interesting. It would be such an interesting language in the leadership space. And when that project Morocco came to a crashing halt, which it did for a variety of reasons, I was left again with this moment of seeing what else I could come up with from the learnings that I had. And I sat down and came up with a concept, which at the time was called Dancing with Management, which used ballroom dance for leadership development as a way of exploring leadership and followership.

Daniel Ludevig [00:06:26]:
And some amazing, very intuitive, trustful, crazy woman in London who was obsessed with Strictly Come Dancing and was working with CEOs out there every month, bringing them into different kinds of experiences than the ones that they would usually have to really open up their perspectives. She thought what I was doing was amazing. And without much hesitation at all, she put me in front of a group of 24 CEOs for a day. And that was a long time ago. That was about 14 years ago now, but that was my entry into leadership development. That day and what happened that day and what I got exposed to and the very deep and rich and divergent journey that I've been on since then, exploring a lot of different modalities and a lot of different ways of working and 1 on 1 coaching and group facilitation. And all of that started because of this very backdoor entry into the business world and into the leadership space. And I actually owe and feel so much gratitude for the trust that that this woman had placed in a in a newbie in the space because otherwise, the only other way I knew in was, you know, through consulting or through a more just, you know, typical business or MBA path.

David Hall [00:07:35]:
Oh, that's quite the story, Daniel. What was it about leadership, you know, early on? Like, maybe even the person that recognized that you had a a different way of of leadership. What was it that that was different that you you wanted that you've learned and you wanted to share?

Daniel Ludevig [00:07:55]:
You know, I really appreciate the question because I didn't know it at the time that I was entering into something that would be so impactful. But what my angle that I was entering with offered was this idea of embodied leadership. Right? So what I was trying to tap into was that you can sit around and talk about things theoretically all day long. And many people do, and many programs do, and many leadership advisories do. And that's a great way to think about leadership. Because for many thinkers out there, analyzing and thinking through models and having different kinds of you know, matrixes to talk about leadership is helpful. And I love that part too. However, what I was tapping into at the time was the power of experiential leadership that you can do something through your body.

Daniel Ludevig [00:08:41]:
You can feel things through your body. You can express things through your body in movement, also as a sensation, also as, you know, an intuition. And that is powerful. And I didn't know it at the time, but what I was using dance for was a way of short circuiting all of the patterns and all of the ways in which people try to hide themselves. So when we sit around and have a theoretical conversation about leadership, it's very easy to hide. It's very easy to use words to cover up how you actually feel or to say things in a way that doesn't reveal what you really think. But when you ask people to move their bodies, most people don't have a lot of training in how to hide or mask themselves behind body movement. And so it becomes extremely revealing.

Daniel Ludevig [00:09:34]:
It's like you see straight into the true essence of a person when you ask them to, you know, move someone across the room like they would lead them or make a gesture that represents their leadership development or make a movement that shows what they're trying to grow into. Most people don't know how to hide their feelings in movement. And so what we were tapping into was that movement is like a fast track to get people to talk about what really matters to them and what's really going on. And I realized over the next few years that this is an entire field, that I wasn't discovering something new. I was stepping into something that existed, which is embodied leadership is a huge field. Arts based leadership and arts based business practices is a huge field, also an academic field. There were people using music, there were people using conducting, there were people using painting, poetry for business based topics as a way of entering in through a completely different avenue. And that is one of the cornerstones of how I work today.

Daniel Ludevig [00:10:38]:
Embodied leadership is a huge part. Experiential leadership is a huge part of how I work with clients. It's not the only way. I think my path allowed me to catch up on some of the other approaches, like using more, you know, mental and cognitive models and science and theories to explain leadership, as well as more heart and emotion based approaches that are really around feeling and understanding your emotional landscape and understanding your past and understanding where it comes from. But at that time, what I was stepping into and what was so unique was doing it through the body. And I think that's still quite cutting edge for most organizations and most leaders today.

David Hall [00:11:15]:
Can you give us an example of how you've helped someone with with this method?

Daniel Ludevig [00:11:22]:
Sure. I mean, there's a few different methods that I'm referencing here. So as I developed in the method that I came up with, which was using ballroom dance for leadership development, I also got in touch with other embodied methods that I found way deeper and more profound and more powerful than my own. So one of the methods that I came in touch with is connected to a body of work that comes out of MIT called Theory You and Presencing. And the embodied method that's connected to that is called social presencing theater. The idea behind social presence in theater is to use the body and to use the way that groups of people show up together to make more visible the dynamics that are present between people. And so very often in group work that I do, in facilitation work that I do, in team development work that I do, I will ask people to create, as a group, a kind of 3 d sculpture using their bodies that represents what the current dynamic in the system feels like. And they will actually get into a discussion around what are the different elements and the forces and the concepts that are present in their system.

Daniel Ludevig [00:12:32]:
So, you know, it could be anything from actual figures, like a CEO or, like, an HR person or, like, employees or, like, clients and thinking about how they constellate and how they would be set up next to one each other one another. It could also be forces, like, money or, like, market forces or, like, the competition. It could be concepts or values like ambition. And the group will actually build a 3 d sculpture using their own bodies and demonstrate how these different elements relate to one another, which ones are close to each other, which ones are far from each other, which ones are facing each other, which ones are linked to each other, which ones have nothing to do with one another. And this will allow people to start to visually see and also physically experience and feel what is otherwise often a very theoretical conversation about the dynamics of our company or our culture. And this first sculpture, as we call it, is something that we call either a current reality sculpture or a from sculpture. So people get a real sense of, oh, this is what's going on in our system. This is why there's a part of our organization that feels totally marginalized and not seen because they're all the way on the far edge of this map that we've created, and nobody's looking at them.

Daniel Ludevig [00:13:46]:
And this is why another group of people feel like they're at the power center and under all the pressure because they're right in the center, and they're all facing each other, and they're disconnected from what's happening outside of that. And then once people have gotten a sense of what the current reality is like, we'll ask them to make a move towards the future reality. So if this system was gonna move, if this sculpture had a certain kind of knowing, a certain kind of wisdom, a certain kind of intelligence, what would change? Where would these different elements shift to? And people after, you know, a couple of minutes of getting over the awkwardness of this modality and this language, which is always a little strange at first, actually will be able to find a new position, a new shape, a new place in the map, a new other element that they're next to or further away from. And as you watch the shift from current reality to what we then sometimes call sculpture 2 or future reality, a huge amount of insight comes up for the groups, Insight that they would not have gotten to in the same way and certainly not with the same speed if we were just sitting around a table talking about it. And that is like a starting point or like a catalyst or like a spark for then a really deep conversation and a reflective conversation about what are these underlying forces or dynamics or beliefs or issues that we need to pay attention to. And that's the power of movement is that it's almost like another source of information to be brought into the conversation that lives in the body. It doesn't live in the head. It's not accessible through words, but you give people a few minutes to get used to the form and a few minutes to start listening to their body in this way, and suddenly they have all this additional insight and very often have breakthroughs in a super short amount of time that they would not have gotten to in a different way.

Daniel Ludevig [00:15:34]:
And that's something I've seen over and over and over again when I use this with groups. That is just a powerful addition to all the other suites of tools out there. Right? It's not a replacement, but it's like completing the conversation that is otherwise missing one perspective, which is the embodied perspective.

David Hall [00:15:52]:
Yeah. Do you have an example that stands out, like a breakthrough somebody's had by doing this?

Daniel Ludevig [00:15:59]:
Oh, I mean, so many different ones. I I remember, you know, I was working with one client that was in the energy field and, in energy industry, and we created a constellation of their relationship between all of the different elements in their system. And among those elements, one of the things that we were looking at was their actual work, which was sourcing energy from oil and mining oil and the relationship between that, the planet around them. So generally, we always put the planet as one of the elements in, and in particular, looking at the locals who lived in areas where they then build these plants and where they build these extraction plants. And through the conversation, when we opened up the the movement from current reality to future reality, what became so visible to them in such a visceral way is that they were completely ignoring the impact that their work was having on these local communities. And that when they would come in and build some of these plants and these infrastructures that would then allow them to extract this oil, they were destroying these communities. And that was creating a huge amount of problems for them. It was creating press problems, but it was also creating a values clash.

Daniel Ludevig [00:17:15]:
It was also creating sustainability clash because it was clear that this is not a sustainable source of energy for the future with the way that, you know, world consciousness is developing. And through the conversation and through the movement, to my incredible surprise, they decided in that session to shift to a completely different source of energy. In other words, to completely shift their business model and move away from oil, which is clearly not a sustainable form of energy anymore, and start employing other ones that are actually much more sustainable and that are much more caught up with the times they were in. And they have since then completely shifted their business model and are now using a totally different source of material and a completely different kind of science and business product to fuel their business transformation. And that, when I talk to them, they tie back to this moment of seeing so clearly the relationship and the conflicts between different elements that they just weren't able to pull together in such a clear way in the past.

David Hall [00:18:19]:
Awesome. Awesome.

Daniel Ludevig [00:18:21]:
Does that give you a picture of of how that moth of how that particular method works?

David Hall [00:18:26]:
Yeah. That definitely helps. Thank you. And you say that you you want to help people be the leaders that are worth following. What do you mean by that?

Daniel Ludevig [00:18:36]:
Yeah. So that's become really a big part of my work right now is to help people become someone worth following. And you know what I heard the other day on a on a podcast that I was listening to that for me was, like, another way of saying the same thing. I was listening to someone talk about how with Instagram and with social media, we give away our attention so easily. We give away our attention to anything that pops up and anything that captures our attention. But it doesn't necessarily mean that the quality of the content that we're giving our attention to is high quality because we're not very cautious and protective of how we give away our attention. That's why doomscrolling and just getting sucked into hours of time on social media, it happens so often. And what the podcaster was talking about is that we need to actually shift that and make the creators of content earn our attention.

Daniel Ludevig [00:19:27]:
Make them earn it. Make them make content that is so good that only then do we give them the gift and the currency of our attention. And if it's not good, we immediately move on, or we stop watching that content, or we, you know, make some sort of report about the content. But we don't just stay on it because we are not being choiceful. That is exactly how I think about leadership. Leaders need to make their followers earn that place as follower. Or in other words, followers should be thoughtful and selective and really intentional about who they choose to follow and who they choose to call their leaders. And it shouldn't just happen because someone is given a leadership position.

Daniel Ludevig [00:20:06]:
It shouldn't just happen because someone is more senior than you. It shouldn't happen just because someone has more tenure than you. Leaders need to be worth following. They need to be demonstrating a set of behaviors and role modeling that set of behaviors so powerfully that they earn their followers and aren't just giving them automatically. And that's what makes them worth following. And that is what I believe leadership should be. I don't think you should follow someone just because you're told that this is not your boss. I think they should step up to the plate and day in and day out be demonstrating that they are actually worth your followership.

Daniel Ludevig [00:20:40]:
And that's where the tagline comes from, this idea of become someone worth following and not just, you know, become a leader because you've been given that position or because you were promoted or because you were hired. Right? That in of itself does not make you a leader. It just makes you someone in a powerful position.

David Hall [00:20:55]:
What are some aspects of that? What are some things that make a leader worth following?

Daniel Ludevig [00:21:01]:
So here's what I've come up with, and this is based on, you know, 15 years of doing this work in companies large and small across the world, stepping back and looking at what training programs are always trying to point to, and frankly, also just paying attention to what I am inspired by and what I see as really having a lot of force on other people. So to me, there are 3 qualities that make someone worth following. One of those qualities is that they have the ability to set an inspiring vision, something that truly makes other people want to work towards a future that they are talking about. So inspiring vision is such an important part of being a leader. Otherwise, you know, if you're just preaching the same thing that everyone else is preaching about the future that you want to get to, it doesn't really help you stand out and inspire and move people. So inspiring vision is one of them. Then there's a second dynamic, a second element, which is around, do you actually know how to strongly influence people? Do you know how to take people and move them towards your vision, even if they have different agendas, even if they have different opinions, even if they have different needs and motivations? So that second capacity of strongly being able to influence people is something I see over and over and over again makes someone worth following. And the third dimension is that they have undeniable authenticity, that people meet them in any context and feel connected and trusting and in relationship with them, not because they show up one way in one place and another way in another place, but because they can actually believe that the person that they say themselves to be and show themselves to be in different contexts is consistent.

Daniel Ludevig [00:22:38]:
So those are the qualities that I see over and over again make someone worth following, that they have this inspiring vision, that they know how to strongly influence, and that they really have this undeniable authenticity. And then the question is, how do you get those skills? How do you work towards those skills? And there's so many different ways to work towards the skills. For me, the levers that you pull and this is part of a leadership program that I've now developed that is a membership based program. The levers that we're pulling there to activate these three dimensions are that you learn what are the skills behind having massive impact, what are the skills behind being able to access consistent growth for you and others, and what are the skills that enable you to access real freedom in terms of your mindset, in terms of how you use your time, and also do that for others. So I think the way you work towards that inspiring vision, towards that strong influence, towards that undeniable authenticity is by learning how to actually build up skills in massive impact and consistent growth and real freedom. And if you work on that together, I am totally convinced that you become someone worth following.

David Hall [00:23:39]:
So how do you help those because authenticity is really important to me and the work that we do on this podcast, you know, really being your true self, tapping into your your gifts. How do you help those that you work with develop that authenticity or or or be authentic?

Daniel Ludevig [00:23:54]:
So there's 2 parts of being authentic to me. One part is understanding your past and where you came from and how that has influenced all of the parts that are who you show up today. And the other part is understanding who you want to become and what your potential is and how that is accessible to you. And the problem is that very often people focus on only one of those things. So there's a lot of focus on potential, a lot of focus on development, a lot of focus on becoming someone, on activating your, you know, potential. And that's great. Right? That's such an important part. But if people don't look backwards at where they came from, they can come across as extremely inauthentic.

Daniel Ludevig [00:24:38]:
If people are constantly trying to be someone that they are not naturally, or if they're trying to be someone and they don't see the way in which all the other aspects of their life story are actually holding them back from becoming this person that they wanna be, then they miss the target of actually, first of all, accessing the resource and the knowledge and the power that can get them to that place. And they are then very often perceived as either masking themselves or showing up inauthentically or trying to be someone that they're not or saying one thing and doing another. So for me, when I work with clients who say they wanna make big changes, they want to feel more like themselves. They want to access their inner, you know, genius, which I work with a lot of clients who say that. And many of the clients that I work with, especially those who are more senior, have reached a point in their careers where they realize they have developed into someone that doesn't feel like themselves anymore, that they have put on masks and put on armor to try to fit in to whatever corporate cultures they've been part of, and that mask or that armor doesn't feel natural anymore. It doesn't feel like a fit. And the first place to start looking when that realization happens, when people have the insight that they want to start being more authentic, that they wanna start taking off the mask, they wanna be more real, is to start taking a real look at, so what is behind that mask? What are the fears that have always been in place that have been the reason why you've put that mask on? What have been the underlying concerns that we've had around not fitting in, around not belonging, and around not being liked, around not being smart enough, around not being important enough, around not being able to actually contribute, and around not being lovable enough that we have always been trying to hide. And until we start to get into relationship with what those inner beliefs are, what those inner traumas are, what those inner stories are and where they came from and why they are there in the first place, it becomes very, very difficult to take off the mask because, actually, that mask and that armor is protecting us is protecting us from whatever it is concerned about, whatever that fear is, whatever that worry is that we will get in harm's way.

Daniel Ludevig [00:26:49]:
Those masks are there for a reason, and we can't just take them off and ask people to start being someone else. I have a client who has started working with me as a coach, and the reason that her company sent her to work with me is they said to her, can't you just be happier? Can't Can't you just wear brighter clothes? Can't you just wear lipstick more often to just kind of come across more positively? That doesn't work. You know, you can't just tell somebody to change their behavior if their behavior is there to actually protect them from some either perceived or potentially even real sense of harm. And so the first place to start looking is when did that behavior form? When did these patterns of belief form? When did these thoughts first come into play? When did we develop the personality that today is perhaps not so functional and doesn't feel so helpful, but when we were younger was in place to actually protect us from something, to protect us from our surroundings, to protect us to survive our family dynamic, to protect us and survive our upbringing and schooling. And only when we start to unpack those things and get interested in them can we then start to change and shift and modify and transform the way those behaviors show up today and through that start to step into this new person that we wanna be or this new way that we wanna show up. And that can happen when we are not tethered or anchored anymore to these past beliefs that are trying to protect us. Then we can get real freedom. Right? Right? And that's why one of these dimensions that I link that to is called real freedom.

Daniel Ludevig [00:28:17]:
Then we can get real freedom and actually be present with the person who's here today and the person that wants to develop tomorrow. But if you're not interested in looking at your past and where that came from, there's no chance of actually developing into something else.

David Hall [00:28:29]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And to me, this also seems like it would be related to confidence and understanding the things that you just described. The being authentic would also give you a boost in confidence. Is there other things that if someone is lacking in confidence that they can do as as a leader?

Daniel Ludevig [00:28:47]:
So having confidence is another one of the elements that we work on. It sits underneath the dynamic before the dimension before that I was telling you about called consistent growth. And having a really unshakable confidence is one of these subtopics that we talk a lot about with my clients. Here's the thing about confidence. Confidence is an emotion. It's also a state of mind, and it can go up and down all the time. And I believe that being confident is overrated as a skill or as a requirement for being a leader. More and more, what we see are leaders who admit that they have doubts, that they have insecurities, that they have moments where they don't know what to do, and that becomes inspiring because it's relatable, and it's true, and it's human.

Daniel Ludevig [00:29:44]:
So for me, confidence is in a direct relationship with insecurities. And when I'm in a moment or in a situation where I get a lot of praise and I get a lot of external validation, my insecurities drop and my confidence increases, and that's nice for that moment. And then when 3 minutes later, someone says something like, oh, you were terrible in that presentation, or you totally missed this opportunity, or I can't believe you did that, then boom, all of a sudden, my insecurities flare up. And what happens to my confidence? It gets hit and it drops. So this is normal. As we do new things, as we try out things, as we practice, as we fail, the relationship between insecurities and confidence is constantly changing. And that's why hanging our sense of identity and our sense of qualification as a leader on confidence is so risky. Because as long as we believe that only when I'm confident can I be a good leader, we are held captive to all of these external forces that can influence our confidence by triggering our insecurities? And our insecurities will always be triggered.

Daniel Ludevig [00:30:53]:
There will always be moments, a new situation, a social situation, someone looking at us a weird way, something that is high stakes, a situation that's high pressure, something that we try that's new, where our insecurities will get flared up. So to me, if people really want to work on the dimension of something that they can hold on to, that would give them validity and would give them a sense of justification as a leader. It's not confidence. It's self worth. And for me, self worth is the belief that I am worthy simply because I exist. I'm not worthy because I'm confident, because we know confidence can go up and down. I'm not worthy because I am not feeling insecure, because we know insecurity can go up and down. And I'm also not worthy because of all sorts of other external things that are actually linked to confidence.

Daniel Ludevig [00:31:44]:
Like, I'm not worthy because I went to, you know, a good university. I'm not worthy because I have an expensive car. I'm not worthy because I live in a nice apartment. I'm not worthy because of x, y, and z. I am worthy simply because I'm a human being, and I have a basic level of worthiness and rights to be loved, to feel belonging, to feel good enough just because of that. And this is an incredibly fundamental and difficult shift to make from attaching our identity to confidence versus attaching our identity to self worth. Many people attach their self worth to their confidence, so they are 1 in the same. Their confidence goes up, they feel more worthy.

Daniel Ludevig [00:32:24]:
Their confidence drops, they feel less worthy. And what I work on with clients is to start to understand that even though we grew up in a system and often education is a big part of it, that directly connects our sense of self worth to confidence. In other words, you are worthy of love. You are worthy of recognition. You are worthy of being seen because you did something well, because you had good results, because you performed well, which are all external aspects. Instead, what I try to do is separate that and understand that your confidence can go up and down based on those external things as much as it wants. But your worthiness is separate from that, and your worthiness is stable. And the more people start to understand the difference between self worth and confidence and untangle those 2 from one another, the more they're able to experience a grounded, natural, consistent sense of self worth even when their confidence is rocked.

Daniel Ludevig [00:33:19]:
And that is powerful leadership. That is powerful leadership to know that I made a mistake, I screwed something up, I didn't have the right answer, I wasn't sure what to do, my insecurities are through the roof, and my confidence took a toll, but I'm still worthy, and I'm still worthy of being a leader. Right? And that comes back to this phrase to become someone worth following. You're worth following because you have a basic grounded sense of qualities as a leader and not because you happen to be confident in one moment and not confident in another.

David Hall [00:33:47]:
Yeah. Brilliant. And it's it's, that sense of self worth allows you to be vulnerable as you describe. Like, if you don't always have the answer, and and people follow that, they understand that.

Daniel Ludevig [00:34:01]:
Totally. And that's you know, all of the work by Carol Dweck on fixed and growth mindset is linked to that. Right? That as long as we are attaching our identity to external results, which is the fixed mindset piece, then we will always be threatened by anything that can potentially, you know, decrease or hurt those external results because it takes a direct toll on our identity. And so we won't do anything that puts those external results at risk. We won't take a risk. We won't try to show up in a way that potentially shows our flaws. We won't be vulnerable. We won't admit to mistakes.

Daniel Ludevig [00:34:31]:
We won't even do anything that could risk making mistakes because as long as that external perfection is our source of our internal worthiness, then it is way too risky to do anything that challenges that. But in a growth mindset perspective, if we actually can separate those 2 and see our identity as stable and our external results just as a playground and a playing field to grow and try things out and evolve, then it becomes amazingly powerful to be vulnerable as a leader because it doesn't threaten our identity. In fact, it amplifies it and allows people to connect to it because they get the real us.

David Hall [00:35:07]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Daniel, is there any, leadership miss that you wanna bust today?

Daniel Ludevig [00:35:16]:
Well, you know, something that that I think is pertinent to this show and your podcast, which which I which I really value that we have as a topic, is that good leadership is born, not formed. Right? That's a total myth, like, that leaders are naturally you know, they just pop out leaders. That is totally not true. You absolutely can learn to be a leader. And when it comes to being a leader, there is totally not one size that fits all. And very often, the size that people are looking at that they think fits all is this charismatic, extroverted, outgoing, confident, well spoken, thoughtful leader. And that is one kind of leader. And in certain contexts, sure, that's inspiring, and that might be what's needed.

Daniel Ludevig [00:36:09]:
But that is not the only leader, and I would love to break the myth of introverts not being able to be leaders. I would love to break the myths of quiet people not being leaders. I would even love to break the myth that people who are not well spoken and who maybe get nervous in front of groups and who don't like a lot of attention on themselves are not leaders because that is absolutely not true. And we need leaders who fill the full range of spectrum from extroverted to introverted, from externally processing to internally processing, from outgoing to more reserved, from immediately reactive to more reflective and thoughtful. And I don't think there's a lot of research or information out there that helps people tap into the powers of some of these more alternative and less visible kinds of leaders because by the nature of their characters, they are less in the spotlight, and so we see them less often. But they are just as powerful, if not more, not in spite of that skill set, but because of it.

David Hall [00:37:15]:
Yeah. I love that you say because of it because that is a myth that we bust regularly on this show. Introverts can be amazing leaders, public speakers, fill in the blank. And it's it's it's not in spite of it. It's and it comes back to your authenticity. You know, it's tapping into your gifts, tapping into your ability to think deeply and and process things deeply, maybe taking some time alone and coming up with some great ideas and great strategic plans, and it's it's because of it. But that's a lot of times people need to tap into that because, like, what are my gifts and also what are my needs? You know? Do I need some time alone? You know? And, you know, that's another myth that we bust regularly on this show is introverts always wanna be alone. No.

David Hall [00:38:06]:
That's not true. They need some time, but everybody needs connection. And it's I love that you said because of because that that's so key. It's like, what are your gifts? What are your strengths? Tap into those, and it's not gonna be just like everybody else. So thank you for that.

Daniel Ludevig [00:38:23]:
You're you're so welcome. I mean, it's, to me, this is totally the, you know, the metaphor of trying to fit, you know, a a square peg into a circular hole. Right? Like, the issue with trying to make everybody look like the same kind of leader is that we miss out on seeing how a variety of skills are actually necessary in leadership. And many of the skills that I'm interested in working on have to do with sensing, have to do with feeling, have to do with intuiting, have to do with deeply listening, have to do with comfort with silence, have to do with reading in between the lines, has to do with extending care and empathy and compassion and being reflective and being thoughtful and seeing things from a different perspective. And all of these qualities, all of them, are particular strengths of introverts by the nature of what so many introverts are doing, which is giving that little bit of space, taking that different perspective, not speaking first, not jumping into the conversation immediately, allowing them a little bit of time to withdraw so that they can then engage. And by the nature of those skills, you get access to all of these other insights that I just mentioned. And that's not an easy thing to cultivate when the image of leadership and successful and good leadership that's given is someone solo on stage enchanting an entire audience. And part of the work then for leaders who don't fit that mold is to not try to become that mold in spite of their skills, but to actually play to their strengths and find other formats and other setups.

Daniel Ludevig [00:40:05]:
So maybe they're not necessarily jumping on stage and entertaining everyone like a total extrovert would, but they are finding formats in which they can engage in smaller groups, in which they can slow the pace down of a presentation, in which they can allow for more of a conversation and more responding to what people say instead of pushing it up front. I mean, these are all such powerful skills to have. And when I work with people, a lot of the work is around increasing your range. Right? So if you have that set of skills, how do you increase that range so that you get access to all of the goodies that are in there? And how do you then also step into the stuff that's more uncomfortable? And that's the same thing on the extroverted side. Right? It's how do we tap into the strengths that they have but also not overuse them and overshadow the fact that there is a whole another dimension of leadership that is not about performance but is about connection.

David Hall [00:40:54]:
Yeah. And when you're saying that, I also, you know, was reading an article, and you said something that I often say, To me, it's not getting out of your comfort zone, but it's expanding it. You know? Because oftentimes, people that are getting out of their comfort zone are getting out of it over and over and over again, but you have to change it or expand it and and and tell and give your tell yourself different thoughts. You know? Like, here's something and here's how I'm gonna tap into my strengths. Here's how I'm gonna honor my needs. So tell us just a little bit more about that. What do you mean if you say that you need to expand your comfort zone?

Daniel Ludevig [00:41:32]:
Yeah. So the way I think about it is like different circles that are growing outside of, the circle before it. So in the very center circle, you have your comfort zone. Right? And that is the skills and the parts of you and the personalities and the experiences that you already have worked through and you have at your disposal and at your fingertips. Now when we try to stretch into other areas that we're learning that are new or that are different, naturally, that's uncomfortable. And in that space of discomfort, there can be fear. There can be anxiety. There can be a whole bunch of different emotions that come up when we're doing something new that don't enable powerful performance.

Daniel Ludevig [00:42:14]:
Right? So doing anything from a space of fear or a space of anxiety or a space of panic or a space of stress that is unhealthy or is too much does not enable good performance. However, if you wanna get to a space where the things that are in that second circle are comfortable, then you don't just accept that those things will always be outside of your comfort zone. You have to stretch that inner first circle to start to get larger and larger so that it actually includes those other behaviors or includes those other skills. And the only way to do that is to sit there for long enough and to start building that muscle for long enough and to get exposure to examples long enough and to practice and then fail and then practice and fail so that, actually, that little inner circle that's called comfort zone starts to grow, and the comfort zone becomes larger and larger and larger. And what was previously outside of that comfort zone in what is sometimes called the fear zone now is included inside your comfort zone. And what is outside of that new comfort zone is your next dimension of fear or your next dimension of something new and your next dimension of something that you can grow into. And this is the basis of learning anything new. Right? Whenever we start anything new in the very first stages of trying something new, it is uncomfortable, and we often don't even know what we don't know.

Daniel Ludevig [00:43:36]:
Right? We just know that it's uncomfortable, and that's something that I call unconscious incompetence. Right? We're not even aware of what we don't know. And as we start learning that new thing, that skill, that competency becomes something that we are consciously incompetent at. Right? So the shift is from the unconscious to the conscious. We become aware. Okay. This is a skill that I'm not good at. It feels uncomfortable.

Daniel Ludevig [00:43:58]:
It feels weird. It feels different. You know, whenever I've been learning anything new, like when I was studying to become a coach, it took all of my energy and strength not to quit this program because it felt suddenly like I don't know anything. Right? I'm learning all these new skills, and it made it feel like even a basic conversation is now hard to hold because I realized how many other aspects of a conversation and of listening and of questioning are actually, you know, possible. So that's this conscious incompetence. As we stay there for a longer time, it shifts to conscious competence, and that's where the circle starts to grow. So we become aware and present to a new skill. It takes energy.

Daniel Ludevig [00:44:36]:
It takes power. It takes force and attention to do it, but it starts to fit within our competency level, within our competency range. And the longer we do that, the longer we stay there, the longer we practice it, the faster we make the move to the final stage, which is conscious competence. We now no longer need to think about the skill. It's just automatic, and that's when it now sits within our new comfort zone. The easiest example is, like, driving learning how to drive a car. You learn how to drive a car at first, the entire thing requires so much attention. The entire thing requires so much focus.

Daniel Ludevig [00:45:09]:
You can't possibly have a conversation with the person next to you or on your cell phone or sing along to the radio while you're trying to learn how to drive a car. But over time, that skill becomes more consciously incompetent, then it shifts to a conscious competence. And at some point, it goes into your autopilot mode. You don't even have to think about it. You just do it, and you can pay attention to the traffic, and you can pay attention to a conversation, and you can sing along to the music, and you can even listen to a phone call and you can do that all while driving. That is the exact same process of development for leadership development. Any skill can be learned. Any skill can be accessed.

Daniel Ludevig [00:45:43]:
You just need to have this process of moving from comfort zone to fear zone to growth zone to learning zone and then eventually starting to incorporate these things back into your comfort zone.

David Hall [00:45:54]:
I love that. It's expanding it. It's not just continually getting out of it over and over again, but it's I love that. Well put.

Daniel Ludevig [00:46:02]:
Because that's exhausting, by the way. Right? If you are constantly doing things that are outside of your comfort zone and your range is never increasing, it leads to burnout. Right? It's overwhelming. It's exhausting. It's depleting. It doesn't feel rewarding. So there needs to be a trajectory and a process that allows you to not just be jumping out and then retreating, but, actually, as you said, expanding.

David Hall [00:46:22]:
Yeah. Awesome. Daniel, this has been a wonderful conversation. It's gone by very quickly. Is there anything else you wanna add?

Daniel Ludevig [00:46:30]:
Listen. I mean, I I love the conversation, and, you know, what I want to to to put out there is that in my experience of what I've seen, there's not a lot of leadership development that I see both being sustainable and accountable towards real progress and growth, and at the same time, following a rigor and a plan and a process that that can enable people to actually move towards this type of leadership that I that I think really makes you worth following. So I've been exploring with a community that I've created exactly how to do this. How do we find the right balance between coaching and accountability and having a training and a clear plan and a process? And for anyone who's interested in in exploring this, I would be super happy to hear from them. This program that I've developed is called The Modern Leader. It's a multiyear membership based learning program to help people become these amazing leaders that the world needs more of and that businesses need more of. And I've been stunned to see the kinds of results that people can get when they have this type of support and plan training, accountability, and community in place. So for people out there who are thinking, okay.

Daniel Ludevig [00:47:35]:
But how do I actually become this kind of leader? And my company is not offering this, and my company is offering something else, but it sucks. You know? That's exactly what I'm trying to put out there in the world, which is a a potent and distilled affordable way for anybody to become a leader, whether you're the leader of a huge company or leader of a scale up or leader of a small team or, frankly, just a leader of your life and your family and your own little world, let's get in touch because I think the world does not have enough examples of great leaders. And that is not because of a lack of great information or knowledge or role, you know, kinds of content, but for a lack of the right type of process to help people get there. And I really wholly believe that that is very possible for anybody, actually, to access if they just have the right process in place.

David Hall [00:48:22]:
Sounds great. So how do people find you?

Daniel Ludevig [00:48:25]:
Well, they can I'm on Instagram, daniel.ludevig. Lots of content and things happening there. Same name on on LinkedIn. And otherwise, if they go to my website, moveleadership.com, you can get in touch with my blog, get in touch with me there, and it would just be awesome to pick up a conversation.

David Hall [00:48:40]:
Sounds great. Thanks again, Daniel, for this great conversation.

Daniel Ludevig [00:48:43]:
Thank you too, David. It was great to talk to you.

David Hall [00:48:45]:
Thank you so much for joining me today. I look forward to further connecting with you. Reach out at david@quietandstrong.com, or check out the quietandstrong.com website, which includes blog posts and links to social media channels. Send me topics or guests you would like to see on the show. If you're interested in getting to know yourself better, there's now a free type finder personality assessment on the Quiet and Strong website. This free assessment will give you a brief report, including the 4 letter Myers Briggs code, and you can also have the option of purchasing the full report if you'd like to learn more. I'll add a link to the show notes. So many great things about being an introvert, and we need those to be understood.

David Hall [00:49:26]:
Get to know your introverted strengths and needs, and be strong.