Nicky Davies, who has spent 17 years in her own business developing inspired leaders in 22 countries, joins Niiamah Ashong on the Outlier's Edge Podcast for an open conversation about innovative leadership. She shares why she is now writing her own take on leadership, and why she believes leaders thrive at the edge between support and challenge. What emerged is a picture of leadership as managing uncertainty, where innovation means taking risks and being willing to be wrong half the time.
Episode at a glance
- Guest: Nicky Davies, Leadership developer who has developed inspired leaders in 22 countries and more than 70 organizations
- Host: Niiamah Ashong, coach to outlier leaders
- Show: Outlier’s Edge Podcast, released April 26, 2022
- Format: conversation, 44 minutes
- Topics: Conversations, not interviews, Putting her own take on leadership into the world, Balancing support and challenge, Safety as an illusion, Innovation and breaking rules, Leading through uncertainty
What Nicky brought to the conversation
Nicky Davies has worked for 17 years in her own business developing inspired leaders in 22 different countries and more than 70 organizations, and has hosted her own podcast for 15 months. After years of teaching established leadership models, she is now writing a report on her own take on leadership and says she feels very clear and confident about it. She sees it as a legacy: something a leader she has coached can point to and say, this is her take on leadership. She knows not everyone will like it and is putting it out anyway.
What emerged
The central insight is that thriving requires a balance of support and challenge, not empathy and compassion alone. Nicky Davies observed employee engagement scores rising in 2020 and falling again after early 2021, and argues that leaning only on empathy can smother people because growth and innovation live at the edge between support and challenge. Niiamah Ashong framed 2020 as survival mode and today as a return to thriving, where the variables in the formula change, and both agreed that uncertainty comes with the territory of leadership.
Questions this episode answers
Is more empathy and compassion enough for leaders to retain people?
Nicky Davies doesn't think so. She says putting too much emphasis on empathy and compassion can smother people, and that organizations thrive with a balance of support and challenge, because that edge is where growth and innovation happen.
Why do innovative leaders have to take risks?
Nicky Davies says safety is an illusion and innovation isn't about playing it safe; it means breaking some of the rules. She describes innovation as moving from asking why, to asking what if, to proposing a different way, and says that kind of creative problem solving comes with risk.
How often should a leader expect to be wrong?
Nicky Davies says a leader is going to get it right 50 percent of the time and wrong 50 percent of the time, and that's the price of being a leader. She sees leadership as holding paradoxes and managing uncertainty.
What makes a podcast conversation more valuable than an interview?
Nicky Davies says her best episodes are conversations that go deeper than promoting a book or service, and those get the best feedback because listeners relate to them. Niiamah Ashong calls these emergent conversations, led by curiosity and questions, as opposed to convergent ones with a fixed outcome.
In their words
Innovation isn't about playing it safe, it is about breaking some of the rules.
Nicky Davies
It's really going to be a balance of support and challenge.
Nicky Davies
The deeper we go the more universal it is because we all have feelings.
Niiamah Ashong
Key moments
05:40 – Conversations, not interviews
09:17 – Emergent versus convergent conversations
10:21 – The power of better questions
13:59 – Writing her own take on leadership
16:38 – Leadership as legacy
20:16 – What engagement scores revealed
22:22 – Balancing support and challenge
26:59 – Safety is an illusion
28:32 – Innovation means breaking rules
33:12 – Right half the time
About Niiamah Ashong
Niiamah Ashong is a coach to outlier leaders, host of the Outlier’s Edge Podcast, and founder of the Trailblazer Collective. He coaches leaders who are creating something only they can make: a company, a body of work or a movement. Make a difference with your difference.
Work with Niiamah: 1:1 with Niiamah | World of Difference
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