Exploring Leaders by Digoshen

Steen Buchreitz Jensen, founder of Scandinavian Executive Institute and board member of Boards Impact Forum, explores what leadership requires when experience and established frameworks can no longer provide all the answers.

He examines how leaders can navigate genuine uncertainty, why experience can be both an asset and a constraint, and how curiosity, judgement and continuous learning can help individuals and organisations move forward when there is no clear roadmap.

The key takeaway: leadership under uncertainty is less about knowing the answer in advance and more about developing the capacity—individually and collectively—to sense what is changing, question assumptions, act, learn and adapt.

This conversation is part of the nine-part series Beyond the Old Playbook, featured in the Exploring Leaders Podcast by Digoshen. The series explores what leadership and governance require when established assumptions, practices and playbooks are no longer enough.

Welcome to read the related blog post: Leading Into the Fog: What Will Leadership and Governance Require by 2030?

Lidija Drobež, experienced business leader and executive coach, explores how we can move forward when the future is still unfolding. Drawing on leadership practice, experimentation, and reflection, she examines how action itself can become a way of learning—helping us test assumptions, create feedback, and discover possibilities that cannot always be seen in advance.

The key takeaway: sometimes we act because we know—but sometimes we need to act in order to know.

This conversation is the eighth episode of the nine-part series Beyond the Old Playbook, featured in the Exploring Leaders Podcast by Digoshen.

Welcome to also read the related blog post Moving Without Knowing — The Benefit of Action, exploring how small steps, experimentation, and learning through action can help us navigate uncertainty when the whole path is not yet visible.

Scott Newton, Managing Partner at Thinking Dimensions, strategy and transformation advisor, and trainer in the Boards Impact Forum’s Boards AI Leadership Program, explores how leaders and organisations can recognise when the approaches that created past success are no longer enough for the world ahead.

Drawing on his extensive experience in strategy, innovation and transformation, he examines how to distinguish temporary turbulence from structural change, why past success can make it harder to question established assumptions, what leaders and organisations may need to retain, adapt or leave behind, and how experimentation and learning can help create direction when the destination is not yet clear.

The key takeaway: renewal begins with recognising when the assumptions behind yesterday’s success no longer fit—then having the courage to let go selectively, learn through action, and provide enough direction for people to move forward without pretending to know exactly where the journey will end.

This conversation is part of the nine-part series Beyond the Old Playbook, featured in the Exploring Leaders Podcast by Digoshen.

Welcome to also read the related blog post: What If What Made Us Successful Is Now Holding Us Back?

Jaap Winter, Chair of the Supervisory Board of Royal Schiphol Group, Partner at Phyleon Leadership & Governance, and Visiting Professor of Corporate Governance at INSEAD, explores how boards can move sustainability from an obligation to a source of business renewal and competitive advantage. 

Drawing on his experience in corporate governance, leadership and business transformation, he examines the value—and limits—of compliance, why sustainability needs to move from backward-looking reporting to a forward-looking business conversation, how boards can discover new opportunities, and why sustainability needs to become part of core strategy and decision-making rather than remain a parallel ESG agenda. 

The key takeaway: sustainability becomes strategically powerful when boards move beyond asking whether the business is meeting its obligations and start asking how sustainability could shape what the business becomes next—creating new value, resilience and competitive advantage. 

This conversation is part of the nine-part series Beyond the Old Playbook, featured in the Exploring Leaders Podcast by Digoshen.

Welcome to also read the related blog post: What If Sustainability Is Where the Next Business Begins?

Lidija Drobež, experienced business leader and executive coach, explores how experience can be both a strength and a limitation when navigating change. Drawing on leadership practice, art, and reflection, she examines how assumptions shape what we see—and how slowing down, questioning familiar perspectives, and looking through different lenses can open up new possibilities.

The key takeaway: navigating uncertainty may depend not only on what we know, but on our ability to see differently.

This conversation is the fifth episode of the nine-part series Beyond the Old Playbook, featured in the Exploring Leaders Podcast by Digoshen.

Welcome to also read the related blog post What If the Limitation Is How We See?, exploring how changing perspective can help us navigate uncertainty—and reconsider what we want to make room for next.

Rolf Pfeiffer, experienced business leader, board chair, executive coach and PhD candidate, explores how leaders can exercise judgement when every available choice has a downside. Drawing on leadership experience, research, and art, he examines why we search for certainty, how to navigate genuine trade-offs, when to stop analysing and start acting, and why awareness and reflection can matter as much as experience. 

The key takeaway: effective leadership under uncertainty may depend less on finding the perfect choice and more on knowing what can be analysed, what requires judgement, and when we know enough to act.

This conversation is the fourth episode of the nine-part series Beyond the Old Playbook, featured in the Exploring Leaders Podcast by Digoshen.

Welcome to also read the related blogpost: When There Is No Perfect Choice 

Lars Husberg, chairman of three companies and advisor on technology and business transformation, explores whether AI is primarily something boards need to govern—or an opportunity they need to understand and shape.

He examines how AI is developing at very different speeds across industries, why boards risk focusing on incremental efficiencies while overlooking larger strategic opportunities, and how foresight, experimentation and continuous learning can help companies act despite uncertainty.

The key takeaway: boards cannot govern AI strategically through risk and compliance alone. They must strengthen their own AI literacy, learn alongside management and owners, and create space for innovation, responsible experimentation and new forms of value creation.

This conversation is part of the nine-part series Beyond the Old Playbook, featured in the Exploring Leaders Podcast by Digoshen. The series explores what leadership and governance require when established assumptions, practices and playbooks are no longer enough.

Welcome to read the related blog post: From Governing AI to Shaping What Comes Next.

Fernanda Torre and Sylvia Robben, board leaders working with Boards Impact Forum and Chapter Zero Neterlands, explore how European boards can contribute to competitiveness and resilience in a world of accelerating change. They examine how board overload, risk orientation and established governance practices can constrain renewal—and how greater strategic ambition, continuous learning, opportunity governance and a willingness to act before all the answers are known can help companies move forward. 

The key takeaway: boards need to govern not only the risks of change, but also the risks of standing still—and create more space for opportunity, innovation and long-term value creation. 

This conversation is the second episode of the nine-part series Beyond the Old Playbook, featured in the Exploring Leaders Podcast by Digoshen. The series explores what leadership and governance require when established assumptions, practices and playbooks are no longer enough. 

Welcome to read the related blog post:
Can European Boards Help Europe Compete Again?

Lidija Drobež, executive coach and facilitator, explores why our need for certainty may be limiting our ability to lead in times of change. Drawing on leadership practice, philosophy, and art, she examines how judgment, curiosity, adaptability, and values can help us move forward when prediction and control are no longer enough.

The key takeaway: effective leadership may depend less on having the right answers and more on learning to navigate uncertainty.

This conversation is the first episode of the nine-part series Beyond the Old Playbook, featured in the Exploring Leaders Podcast by Digoshen.

Welcome to read the related blogpost https://digoshen.com/what-if-the-problem-is-our-need-for-certainty/

Stephanie Woerner, MIT CISR Academic Director, shares how leaders and boards must evolve in the AI era—shifting from control to coaching, embracing experimentation, and building AI maturity. She outlines four stages of enterprise AI adoption, highlights the value of human-AI collaboration, and shows that boards with AI-savvy members significantly outperform others. The key takeaway: to lead with impact, leaders must use AI, not just learn about it.