Making Sense In the Mess: Leadership for a Turbulent Time

Daniel Atlin is a strategic advisor, executive coach, and leadership researcher who helps leaders and purpose-driven organizations navigate complexity, uncertainty, and change. Drawing on more than 30 years of senior leadership experience across higher education, cooperatives, and government, he focuses on sensemaking, resilience, and helping leaders remain grounded in purpose when there is no clear roadmap. Daniel is also the host of MESSY – Making Sense of the Mess of Leadership, where he explores the human side of leading in complex environments.

The Interview Summary

Leadership today is not about pretending to have all the answers. In a world shaped by rapid technological change, economic uncertainty, polarization, declining trust, resource constraints, and competing stakeholder expectations, certainty is often an illusion.

In this episode of The Nonprofit Exchange, Hugh Ballou talks with strategic advisor, executive coach, and leadership researcher Daniel Atlin about how leaders can navigate complexity through sensemaking.

Daniel explains that many of the challenges leaders face today are not problems that can simply be solved. Instead, they must be interpreted, navigated, and continually reassessed. Effective leaders learn to pay attention to changing conditions, understand their own reactions, listen to the signals within their organizations, and help people move forward together even when there is no perfect roadmap.

A major part of this work is what Daniel calls inner sensemaking—understanding how fear, fatigue, bias, stress, and personal history affect the way leaders interpret situations and respond to others. Self-reflection, resilience, and the ability to pause before reacting become essential leadership disciplines.

The conversation also explores outer sensemaking: reading the people, relationships, systems, and changing environment surrounding an organization. Rather than relying on rigid plans or command-and-control leadership, Daniel advocates for leaders who are adaptive, collaborative, and firmly anchored in purpose.

Hugh and Daniel also discuss the limitations of traditional long-range strategic plans, the importance of continually adjusting direction, and what Daniel calls the art of subtraction—letting go of programs, priorities, or activities that may no longer serve the organization’s current reality.

For nonprofit leaders, clergy, board members, and other mission-driven professionals, this conversation offers a practical reminder: leadership is not the performance of certainty. It is the ability to help people understand what is happening, stay grounded in purpose, and take the next responsible step together.

Key Takeaways

• Why certainty is often a fiction in complex organizations
• What sensemaking means in practical leadership
• How inner sensemaking strengthens self-awareness and resilience
• Why leaders must pay attention to their own stress, biases, and reactions
• How to read the people and systems surrounding an organization
• Why adaptive and collaborative leadership matters more than command and control
• How purpose provides an anchor during uncertainty
• Why strategic planning should remain flexible and ongoing
• The importance of the “art of subtraction” in nonprofit leadership
• Why leaders should ask, “What am I not seeing? What am I missing here?”

About Daniel Atlin

Daniel Atlin is a strategic advisor, executive coach, and leadership researcher who helps leaders and purpose-driven organizations navigate complexity, uncertainty, and change. Drawing on more than 30 years of senior leadership experience across higher education, cooperatives, and government, he focuses on sensemaking, resilience, and helping leaders remain grounded in purpose when there is no clear roadmap. Daniel is also the host of MESSY – Making Sense of the Mess of Leadership.

Website: https://www.djasensemaking.com/ 
LinkedIn: Daniel Atlin
Substack: Daniel Atlin

 

The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou

Hello again. This is Hugh Ballou, and this is The Nonprofit Exchange. Here we are with a special guest today, Daniel Atlin. I want to tell you about Daniel. We keep finding these amazing people who come and want to share with you. So sit down, listen, make it quiet. There will be some really important messages for you today—things you can take away and use. Share this with anybody you like. It’s thenonprofitexchange.org, O-R-G.

Today’s conversation explores a different model of leadership for an age of complexity. Leaders do not need to perform certainty when certainty does not exist. Instead, they can help people make sense of changing conditions, remain anchored in purpose, and move forward together without pretending there is a perfect roadmap. This should be especially relevant to nonprofit executives, board leaders, clergy, and other mission-driven leaders carrying responsibility in turbulent environments.

So today’s guest is Daniel Atlin, a strategic advisor and executive coach who helps leaders and complex, purpose-driven organizations navigate change, uncertainty, and competing demands. He brings more than 30 years of senior leadership experience across post-secondary education, cooperatives, and government. Daniel completed an executive master’s degree through Oxford and HEC in Paris, where his research examined how university leaders use sensemaking to lead through complexity and build high-performing teams. He is also the host of MESSY: Making Sense of the Mess of Leadership. Ooh, that’s going to be fun. There he explores the lived realities of leadership in higher education, healthcare, nonprofits, and other complex environments.

Daniel, the title of our conversation today is “Making Sense In the Mess: Leadership for a Turbulent Time.” Before we talk about tools or frameworks, what is the mess that leaders are actually trying to make sense of today?

Daniel Atlin

Thanks, Hugh, and it’s great to be here with you today. Let me just say that the mess is not one thing. It’s actually a multiple list of things. It’s about technological change and AI, economic uncertainty, polarization, changing expectations of institutions, reduced trust, and resource constraints. It’s about multiple stakeholders who want different things. And, of course, like all of us, it’s about people themselves, who are bringing fear, history, fatigue, and other expectations into the system.

So the mess is not necessarily a problem waiting to be solved. Most of it is much more to be navigated. We’ve spent lots of time talking about leaders needing to be able to solve problems. Many of the things that are happening today are things that actually can’t be solved by any leader. They are situations involving competing values, incomplete information, changing conditions, and a multitude of different people who see the world differently. So leadership is increasingly about making sense of the uncertainty that we’re in, rather than simply making decisions.

Hugh Ballou

You and I talked a little bit before we went live. I’ve studied the art and craft of meeting facilitation and running meetings, and I tell people, “We’re going to have an eight-hour session. It’s going to be a big mess, and it’s all going to seem confusing. We’re not going to get it all at once. Just trust me. It works out. We just need to pay attention and give it our best attention.”

So I hear a lot of people wanting to perfect things before they do anything. They want certainty. They want to make sure they have the right answers. Why is that not the best strategy?

Daniel Atlin

Yeah, I think we’ve been sold a bill of goods sometimes, Hugh, that leaders have got to be decisive, have certainty, and have that power—sort of a big personality as well. It’s a bit of the cult of personality that we have actually been sold, I think. And even though we can say it’s changing, I think we still lionize leaders in corporations, government, and other places. I’m not going to mention names; we all know who they are.

But in truth, the whole world is messy, and organizations are messy. In generally complex organizations, certainty is often fiction. So the work of leaders is actually helping people move through a state of uncertainty—with others and with themselves—to make better sense of the situations they’re in and the world that’s becoming. And it’s also being anchored in purpose so you can remain guided.

Hugh Ballou

I live in the southern United States, and we have our own language and different grammar. So we say, “None of us is as smart as all of us.” There’s a culture problem and a leadership problem. We’ve been taught information about being a leader that’s wrong, and we try to emulate that. We’ve inherited cultures that have learned that.

So there’s a culture that looks to leaders and says, “Well, you’re supposed to have the answers. You’re the leader.” How do we show up instead of thinking we have to have all the right answers, knowing that we need to have good questions, help people work into the solution with us, and then listen carefully for the answers? Help us with that inherited authority figure of the CEO having to have all the right answers.

Daniel Atlin

Yeah, well, I think it’s a wonderful sort of myth that was created. I think it would be great if people actually recognized the importance of bringing people along, because that’s what is required nowadays.

Things are moving so quickly these days that leaders actually don’t have the information to be as decisive as they used to be with certainty, because certainty doesn’t exist. Everything is in constant motion. So you need leaders who can do what I call sensemaking—seeing the emotions and reactions of people in order to bring people forward with them.

And you don’t want to get too far ahead of them, because if you’re a leader and you do that, as someone used to say to me, “Don’t get too far ahead of the enemy, because you might be mistaken for the enemy.” So don’t get too far ahead of your people, because you might be thought of as the enemy. We have to make sure leaders can be with the people, bringing people along rather than being out in front and ahead, trying to lead from too far away, I’d say.

Hugh Ballou

If you’re coming by the video feed, we’re streaming live. This is The Nonprofit Exchange, talking to Daniel Atlin, and there are a lot of good sound bites. You can find this whole transcript at thenonprofitexchange.org.

So, Daniel, let’s dig deeper into this sensemaking. It sounds kind of like an academic concept, so connect it to real life and why it’s important.

Daniel Atlin

Yeah, you’re right. In some ways, sensemaking can be academic, and at other times it can seem a little bit touchy-feely. It’s the work we do to understand what is going on so that we can decide what to do next. It’s really about how you can find the path forward, especially at these times of uncertainty.

It’s about how you interpret the data and use the signals around you to construct a sort of notional map and a narrative that will allow you to move forward. In a sense, sensemaking is always happening. It’s something you have to do all the time. It means that you have to be action-oriented as well. In some ways, it’s like creating an online Google map that’s constantly being updated and refined with new information and new data.

Hugh Ballou

And in a rapidly changing world—and I’ve especially found this true in the church—everything is changing, but people want it to be the same inside: “No, that’s not the way we do it. This is how we’ve always done things.” Those are pretty destructive words in a changing world.

For example, somebody says, “Look, I’ve got the very best AI that’s out there.” And I say, “Okay, just wait 10 minutes.” It’s whizzing by, and all of a sudden it’s different. So people have the insecurity, but we really need to pay attention to what’s going on, because we get in a rut and the world is going to go by. How do we get out of that rut of the same old thing?

Daniel Atlin

Yeah, well, I think it’s actually, as you say, opening people’s eyes and recognizing the true nature of the mess organizations are in, rather than what they’re being told.

We’re being told nonprofits, clergy, and others should act more like certain kinds of organizations, but the reality is that it’s not like that. It’s far messier than that. I think that hit home to me when I was speaking to a university president after I shared back my dissertation. They said, “You know what? Thank you for actually just even naming the map,” because it was so helpful in itself. So often we’re blind to the real environment we’re in, and just knowing that is so important.

Hugh Ballou

And it can drive us into a culture where everybody wants to be critical or blaming because they’re afraid of the uncertainty. So take a minute and describe the practical habits of a leader who is a strong sensemaker.

Daniel Atlin

That’s a great question, Hugh, and it’s at the heart of my research as well. A great sensemaking leader is anchored by purpose—the purpose of the institution you’re leading.

It’s also about making sense of yourself, and that’s what I call inner sensemaking. It’s being aware of how you show up. It’s being aware of what you’re observing around you and how you’re observing your own reactions. It’s recognizing how you show up under stress. It’s recognizing the biases you bring to the table. And it’s taking a pause to understand things when they are moving too quickly.

Then it’s also about making sense with others. That’s about trying to see how others are interacting together. You do this through things like exploration and mapmaking, where you gather all the data together, pull it together, and create a story.

But it’s also about cultivating your team and your organization to become better improvisers and inventors. And finally, I think it’s really important, as you say, to bridge divides by being adaptive and collaborative. So it’s those things together that create a really great sensemaking leader.

Hugh Ballou

I want to highlight those: adaptive and collaborative. Is that what you said?

Daniel Atlin

Mm-hmm.

Hugh Ballou

I don’t think people truly understand the value of those—this collaborative culture. We do have a lot of myths about leadership that we’ve inherited, like, “I’m the boss. I’ve got to make the decisions. I’ve got all the right information, and you do what I say.” That doesn’t work in today’s world, does it?

Daniel Atlin

It certainly doesn’t. It doesn’t work. People don’t want to be told. They don’t want to be directed. They want to be brought along. So that does require a new sense of collaboration.

And just because you collaborate doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get everyone on the same page, but people should understand what the direction is. They should understand what the purpose is and how it relates to that as well, and recognize that you’re going to go forward no matter what.

There’s going to be a different story, because there’s always a different story. There are always multiple ways you can see things. But you’re taking the view that, with the information you have and the conversations you have, that’s the direction you’re choosing.

Hugh Ballou

And we assume people remember the same things we remember. I find that it’s important that we all remember our purpose and our guiding principles. What is it that binds us together in what we value and the results that we value?

So let’s build on what you said about inner sensemaking. We’ve got these things that come into our world, like fear, disappointment, fatigue, and then self-awareness—you talked about that too. Let’s blend these two ideas together.

We’ve got things that happen to us. I just had a death in the family. That’s an emotional reaction. I just got back from a long weekend with relatives celebrating my birthday. I’m tired today. So we show up; we’re not the perfect human being, so we need to give ourselves a little breathing room.

How do we have self-awareness? We talked about blind spots and biases. I put blind spots with biases. There are things we don’t see. How do we improve that self-awareness and deal with all these emotional issues that come to us?

Daniel Atlin

Yeah, great question. I think a lot of that is done through self-reflective activities, whether it’s journaling or sending voice notes to yourself. It’s going through some exercise and noticing what you did when things went wrong in your life or when things went really well. Those things teach you about where you tend to go when you experience failure or exhaustion, perhaps.

So it’s being aware of what got you here, but recognizing that those things may show up when you’re in a similar situation. And I think sometimes it’s also about creating your own personal resilience story—understanding when you were at one of your low points in your life or career, what did you do to get out of that?

Maybe it took a while. Maybe it took time with friends. But realizing what carries you through is so, so important.

Hugh Ballou

Wow, really good points. We forget the purpose. We have to talk about it and remind ourselves, especially when dealing with volunteers coming and going, a volunteer board, and other stakeholders who have done other things. We need to have that focus and that anchor.

So in any organization, we hold a position. Sometimes leaders see us as that position, not as a human being. There’s a relationship part of this. Let’s use this as a bridge: how do we recognize who people are and move into outer sensemaking—reading people and reading the system that we’re operating and leading in?

Daniel Atlin

Yeah, another good question, Hugh. Thanks for that. I think it’s important for leaders to understand, especially in nonprofit organizations or clerical situations, that you’re the steward; you’re not the organization itself. Oftentimes, in other organizations, those get conflated and can be seen as the same thing.

You have to realize that you’re there because of your position. You’re there because of the experience you bring and what you’ve achieved. But you’re also there by the grace of the other people in the organization. So it’s the trust that’s been created too.

I think it’s important to recognize that effective leaders care passionately about the mission of the organization. But they realize they are the stewards, and their personal identity is important because it gives them credibility, but it doesn’t have to be wrapped up in the organization.

I also think organizations can make people conflate these things. You have boards sometimes that say to a new executive director or leader of an organization, “Create a strategic plan for me.” Then that plan almost becomes personified. It almost becomes the product and position of the person rather than the organization. So I think boards have to flip that. The plan is not for the person, and it should survive the person in that position.

Hugh Ballou

So we also have the danger of getting locked in without being flexible. This self-awareness has multiple layers and multiple impacts on human beings, right?

Daniel Atlin

Absolutely. It does, because you’re right. I’m not a huge fan of these massive five-year to 10-year strategic plans, especially those done in academic institutions that tend to be laundry lists of initiatives you’re already doing and that try to satisfy all the different internal stakeholders.

Instead, I think it’s better to have a strategic plan that’s maybe three years long and directional, with three or four key things. That provides a framework for you to answer, “What new thing that’s coming up should we take on, or what should we let go?” It’s a tool for you to determine what to use and what to discard.

Hugh Ballou

That’s what I actually do in strategic planning. We’ve got three. Let’s stay with three. How much can we handle? Then we add one more thing—does it topple this whole house?

So let’s talk about psychiatrist Murray Bowen, who had the concept of Bowen family systems. It’s the antithesis of Freud and Jung, but it’s about leadership, really, and he has his eight concepts. He talks in there about differentiation of self and remaining calm.

So the leader in your system is the anchor in a period of turbulence. And Bowen says our anxiety is transmitted through the whole culture and comes back to us. Then we have triangles in relationships, and the anxiety goes around the triangle. So talk about the leader being the anchor in a time of turbulence.

Daniel Atlin

Absolutely. I think somebody described it quite well to me. They said, “The leader has to hold the uncertainty and tension on behalf of the organization.” So in some ways, I think they have to be the one who deals with some of this negative, I guess, karma that’s out there, and be able to process it—not necessarily take it on, but be able to process it.

That, I think, is why inner sensemaking—making sense of yourself—is especially important, because you’re aware that you have to process this. You’re aware that you have to sit with it sometimes. Sometimes you have to find a way to push it to the side. Sometimes you have to find a way to reframe it.

But it’s so important because I don’t think leaders are traditionally taught this very much, Hugh—the importance of making sense of yourself when you’re in an organization. But when you think about it, organizations are all just collections of people. And as you say, one person’s reaction can have a multiplier effect that can derail things and create challenges for an organization if they’re not aware of it.

Hugh Ballou

So we also talk about moving forward without the certainty of the perfect roadmap. We do an academic exercise of setting our goals and putting all that strategy in place. But how do we move from wanting to do one more thing to perfect it and not act on it, to saying, “Let’s move forward with this”? And how does that happen in a collaborative environment?

Daniel Atlin

Well, if I had the magic answer for that, I’d be sitting on a beach somewhere, I think. The real answer is trial and error.

You have to make certain that you’re not exhausting the organization, as you say, by taking on too much. I think organizations—especially social-purpose organizations, nonprofits, et cetera—have a problem with that art of subtraction: taking out things that are not necessarily as important today as they were last year, and recognizing how to reframe and reposition resources to go forward.

That’s why mapmaking and strategic planning should be ongoing rather than an exercise that happens once a year and gets blessed by the board. It needs to be continually addressed and tinkered with to make certain you have the right framework.

Hugh Ballou

Have you been reading my stuff? We’re so much on the same page. This is remarkable. Yeah, it’s not static. It’s an organic document. It’s always in flux. And if we’re not paying attention, nothing’s going to happen.

I’m going to go to your website for a minute and talk about that, and then we’ll come back and have some fun with some rapid-fire questions. Tell us what the link is for people to find your website, please.

Daniel Atlin

Yeah, the website link is www.djasensemaking.com, and you’ll find there some information about me, my podcast, and what I offer as well.

Hugh Ballou

And there’s a contact button. I bet you answer people who reach out to you, don’t you? If you’re listening on a podcast, there’s his good-looking picture there and a picture of his podcast. There are lots of good resources that you don’t have to pay anything for. He’s here to help you grow with his wisdom.

We’re old enough, Daniel—I’m way older than you are—we’re old enough to have learned a lot of things. So if a leader listening today feels overwhelmed by the mess, what’s one place they can begin?

Daniel Atlin

Well, I think—and this gets into perhaps one of the questions you were going to ask in the rapid fire—the Serenity Prayer is one thing that I think is extremely important for leaders. I think it works for everyone, regardless of religious denomination and regardless of where you’re coming from.

It’s so important because there are things that we have no control over, and we shouldn’t try to control them. That’s where leaders, I think, most often get caught up. And that’s where we most often get caught up in our personal lives as well.

So I think the Serenity Prayer is a great thing for people to keep coming back to, and perhaps as important as purpose in anything.

Hugh Ballou

Absolutely. Here are the short-answer questions—rapid fire. One leadership habit you wish more leaders practiced?

Daniel Atlin

I think it’s self-reflection, absolutely.

Hugh Ballou

One leadership habit you wish more leaders would stop?

Daniel Atlin

I think believing they can control things.

Hugh Ballou

A question that leaders should ask more often.

Daniel Atlin

What am I not seeing? What am I missing here?

Hugh Ballou

Yeah. A sign that a leader is trying too hard to control the situation.

Daniel Atlin

That they’re unable to hear, I’d say, the signals in the room that are contrary to the direction they’re going.

Hugh Ballou

What’s a book or a person that has most influenced your understanding of leadership?

Daniel Atlin

I think there are two, if I can. One is Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning. The other is the adaptive leadership book Leadership on the Line by Heifetz and Linsky.

Hugh Ballou

Lovely books, lovely books. Complete this sentence: In the mess, never lose sight of…

Daniel Atlin

Purpose and people.

Hugh Ballou

Daniel, you’ve done a lot to remind us what true leadership is all about and help us understand how to figure out what’s happening and not stress out over it. It’s part of the process. It’s part of being human. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve learned a lot from you today.

So Daniel, thank you for sharing your wisdom today on The Nonprofit Exchange.

Daniel Atlin

Absolute pleasure, Hugh. Thank you so much.