Dave Chauhan · 46 min
A former corporate executive who spent nearly two decades chasing titles and paychecks discovers that real leadership has always been about uplifting humanity, and walks away from everything to prove it.
Hear this story
Dave Chauhan spent nearly two decades climbing the corporate ladder, chasing titles and paychecks in roles that felt hollow. He grew up pulled between two sets of values: his grandmother taught him that who you are matters more than what you achieve, while his birth parents believed success meant status, degrees, and money. For years, he chose the ladder. Then, finishing his MBA at the University of Illinois, he asked himself a harder question: what will I leave behind? Not another zero on a paycheck or another title on a resume, but something that actually mattered. He walked away from his job with no plan.
What followed was unexpected. Alone at home, journaling to make sense of his unease, Dave discovered he had something to say. His wife Sari read his early pages and told him the first part was rough but the pain showed through, and the real work was only beginning. Over fifteen grueling revisions, a book took shape. Captain Set Sail is not a business manual. It is a guide to leadership that starts in the cot with your first caregiver, not in a boardroom with your first title. Dave argues that modern business inherited a broken definition of leadership from economist Milton Friedman in the 1960s: profit above all else. But leadership, Dave insists, is something older and more human. It is about trust, vulnerability, and the courage to say I don't know.
Through the Beacon, Wayfinder, and Seafarer model, Dave shows what it means to lead with purpose anchored in values, to stay adaptable in chaos, and to position yourself where you can actually see your team and protect them. His message is simple: if you cannot step back from firefighting, something is wrong. Real leadership means knowing when not to decide, and always staying humble enough to learn from others who know more.
“My purpose, my why, which is to reclaim leadership as a profound obligation to uplift humanity and ensuring that in age where everything is changing, it's chaos around us, we keep the human heart at the helm of our collective future.”
“I could have taken that as purely trauma and would have lived with that trauma for rest of my whole life. But somewhere both of those parents did teach me resilience as well.”
“17, 18 years later in my career, I started looking back and finding lack of meaning and trying to understand, wait a minute, if this is what I'm supposed to do, then what leaves my legacy when I'm gone?”
The hero, today
Values are not inherited whole from one source but ranked and chosen by you in response to the situations you face, and that ranking shapes every decision you make. Leadership does not start when you get a title; it starts in the cot with your first caregiver and continues through school, sport, and family, and corporate culture teaches you to unlearn what you already knew about trust and empathy. Every decision you make as a leader carries emotional weight and impacts real people behind it, and if you cannot afford to step back from firefighting, something is not right with how you are leading. The definition of leadership in modern business was rewritten by Milton Friedman in the 1960s to mean shareholder profit above all else, and that shift changed what leaders believed success was, but that narrative can and must be fixed. The most important thing a leader can do is say 'I don't know', stay curious, and empower others in the room who know more, because if you think you are the smartest person in the room, you are not yet a leader. Leadership is not a race for titles or a badge of honor; it is a profound obligation to serve humanity and leave the world better than you found it.
Yes. Dave Chauhan is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
Values are not inherited whole from one source but ranked and chosen by you in response to the situations you face, and that ranking shapes every decision you make.
Leadership does not start when you get a title; it starts in the cot with your first caregiver and continues through school, sport, and family, and corporate culture teaches you to unlearn what you already knew about trust and empathy.
Every decision you make as a leader carries emotional weight and impacts real people behind it, and if you cannot afford to step back from firefighting, something is not right with how you are leading.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 00:03
Welcome to the Grit Diaries with Mon and Maz, a place where we share real stories meets real transformation. Each episode, we share the journeys of everyday people who's faced life's hardest moments and found their way to hope, healing, and purpose. May their courage inspire you and in the world around you. Let's get inspired! Hello, Mon and Maz from Grit Diaries talking about today with Dave Chauhan. I'm excited, are you, Maz? Ah, look, we've just finished the recording and oh my gosh, there is just so much that came out of the discussion today. And we really went quite deep, didn't we? Dave really unpacked a lot of how his childhood, with his really interesting story about having two sets of values and how that actually shaped his encouraged to really jump ship and move into the leadership space. What did you take out of the interview? Well, firstly, it was interesting because Dave was raised a lot by his grandmother and, and didn't realize he actually had parents for a long time of his life, and then suddenly discovered he had parents, and he thought his grandmother was his mother. So the whole story is interesting because he talks a lot about powerful leadership and what he learned along the way in his executive career. And then he's written a fantastic book called Captain Set Sail, and the analogies of steering ship, but being a beacon, a wayfinder, and a seafarer all in one as a leader. It's a fantastic book. He's going to talk a little bit about it. And if you're a leader out there navigating, whether it's raising a family, whether it's leading a team, it's a great little book. And I think you'll love to hear Dave and his talk about his book, Captain Set Sail. It's a great conversation. We've been absolutely blessed to have a second conversation with Dave and his just a genuine, beautiful human being. And as you say, Mon, whether you're leading a family, whether you're leading a team, you know, leading a whole business, you know, this one's really for you. Thanks, Maz. Hello everyone and welcome to this great episode of The Grit Diaries. Hello to you, Mon. Hello, Maz. Happy to be on Grit Diaries, Grit to Grace. And we've got an absolute showcase for you today. We've got a great interview with the lovely Dave. I'll hand over to you, Mon. Yes, I'm excited to introduce Dave Chauhan. I love that name. It's quite exotic. And Dave is author of an incredible book called Captain Set Sail, which I've just recently finished reading, and I strongly recommend it for anybody that's in a leadership role particularly, or who wants to understand their leaders more. And it's a fabulous book called Captain Set Sail. Dave Chauhan, welcome.
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The definition of leadership in modern business was rewritten by Milton Friedman in the 1960s to mean shareholder profit above all else, and that shift changed what leaders believed success was, but that narrative can and must be fixed.
This conversation includes two sets of parents, two sets of values, values as a ranked system, leadership starts in the cot, not the boardroom, the mba that changed everything, the redundancy and the journal and sari reads the first draft.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 02:51
Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Maz. Great to be here and humbled to— and I'm glad to be spending time with you and your audience.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 02:56
It's a real pleasure to interview you today. And David, cause he's got a fantastic story, so I'm sure the listeners will look forward to hearing it and how your early days really did set a lot of thoughts around your future. But what I love about Dave, and it's so important that people can see the signals when they need to go and do something different, become an alchemist, which is what Dave has done. He's a strategic leader. He's had a whole career behind him as a leader, two decades navigating, leading high-performing teams and purposeful outcomes with teams. And then a point he pivoted and decided that his path was teaching others about leadership, and he's completed his MBA and written a fabulous book, as I've mentioned. And what I love about the book is it gives practical tips at the end of each chapter. If you're frustrated as a leader, if you're feeling like a bit lackluster in very, very turbulent times, this is really the book to read. It's got so many great analogies and helpful tips. And yeah, I can't wait to interview you and talk more about it. Dave, why don't we go into a little bit about you and your early days? Tell us a little bit about your upbringing, just a little bit about Dave Chauhan.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 04:13
Before we get into it, I want to talk about my purpose. While our stories define us, the most important thing that we can do from our story is take it as an opportunity to define what we become out of our stories. And my story gave me my purpose, my why, which is to reclaim leadership as a profound obligation to uplift humanity and ensuring that in age where Everything is changing. It's chaos around us. It's artificial intelligence taking over. It's robotics almost at the cusp of it. We keep the human heart at the helm of our collective future. The decisions we make, the organizations we run, and companies we make, we make sure that, you know, it's all for the humanity. From that perspective, when I look at my own journey, I was born in Libya to Punjabi parents, and they took it back to my grandmother where I had my early upbringing. Thinking my grandmother was my real mom until my parents reappeared in my own life. And there's a whole chapter of trauma where two sets of parents with conflicting values, all with good at heart, trying to raise me. And me as a naive child trying to understand and even get to the basics of, you know, connection and understanding what love is and all that. Getting to the point where I am a teenager, where I'm struggling to understand what my values are, what purpose for my life, and really trying to go through my own journey and getting to the point where I completed my and now I have these two sets of conflicting values where my birth parents, my mom and dad, first-generation university goers, from their perspective, life is all about careers. Life's always about studying and getting to the point where you have status in society, where your work defines you, not you define what you want to do. On the other hand, my grandmother, whose only value was do and make the world a better place to live, go and change the world by not what you want to do, but who you are, and that defines what you want to do with it. For 17, 18 years, I focused on my corporate career, you know, as you do. You get your university degree, you go, you study, and then you start climbing a corporate rung thinking that's what defines success, that's what defines what you are ought to do, what you're supposed to do in this world. And 17, 18 years later in my career, I started looking back and finding lack of meaning and trying to understand, wait a minute, if this is what I'm supposed to do then what leaves my legacy when I'm gone? Is it this 17, 18, or 20, or 40 years of corporate career that defines how much I made, what titles did I win, and then when I'm gone, I'm just another chapter in this whole saga of human history, versus I do something that makes tiny dent on this world, making and leaving this world a better place.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 06:49
Talking about your values and just how that's shaped you know, your shifting careers and how it's made you change trajectory in your life and setting sail. I love that you talked about, you know, having different values. You were going from your grandmother, from your mother, uh, your parents that had quite different values. When you reflect back on that, do you find that it was probably the necessary ingredients for you to actually be going on this path? If you had just one set of values, do you feel that your trajectory might be different now?
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 07:24
Absolutely. Values create who we are. And I love this analogy where they say the only difference between a biological body and human is the values and the meaning we carry. Otherwise, there's no difference between a veterinary and a doctor, unless until you're dealing with— you see your work as just dealing with physical bodies. So in the same analogy, values is what add more meaning to the biological body that human is. And then on that journey, we get to the point where we define our purpose. So people often say values is the sum product of your own environment and what you deal with it. But my own experience tells me, and there's a lot of research and a lot of work that's been done before me, the likes of Viktor Frankl, where he explains and where it's been defined that value is also what you conclude and extract out of situation that you are put into. When I was being tossed between two sets of parents, I could have taken that as purely trauma and would have lived with that trauma for the rest of my whole life. But somewhere, both of those parents did teach me resilience as well. They did teach me how you take good out of those two values. So while there wasn't anything bad that was coming out of their intentions to treat me as a child that they want to keep, or they want to instill certain values, they also taught me that that I can take something good out of that situation that I was put into. And values, it's a ranked process. It's not that, you know, when you have one value, you align and you don't have any other value. How you define your values in that rank, in that set order, and that's what defines your decision-making process. So when a certain decision is placed in front of you or a certain situation is placed in front of you, how do you pass that decision through the test of layered value system? That extract the decision out of it. And I think that choice is with us, with every individual that we are in terms of how we rank that value system.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 09:16
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 11:06
Most people think that leadership starts when you get your first lesson in 101 management class, or when you gain your manager title. But in reality, when we look back and when we look across the span of human understanding and how our psyche develops, Leadership starts in the very first moment when we are born, when we get in the hands of our caregivers, and we feel and we create that relationship of trust between that, you know, I am safe as a baby. Leadership happens when I am being raised by family and there are siblings around me. And every time there is either I am partaking leadership, either I'm delegating leadership as leadership, or either I'm learning or taking as a follower. Leadership happens all the way when you go to your school and when you look at your teachers, how they interact with you, or on a footy field when you look at your coach and you take a lesson or two. And it's funny from that sense that we understand in those circumstances and in those scenarios where there is no real monetary or fiscal element to the leadership, we understand the real qualities of what leadership instills or means. You mentioned empathy, trust, all the softer part of leadership that often we see highly feminine, you know, part of our society. But then when we get to that corporate level leadership system, we change the narrative. We change that, you know, leadership means it's about you. It's, it's very individualistic. It's about success. It's about KPIs. And we have to unlearn everything that we have learned until that moment. And it's bizarre that, you know, often this journey entails, you know, 18, 20 years of our life. Like in my case, for me, this was coming through different sets of parents where one set of parents felt that for me, leadership is about success, essentially. And then being meaningful part of the society means that you have to gain and you have to get to the numbers, you have to get your title, your paycheck, and all those things that we essentially now qualify leadership with, versus the other and softer side of things that, you know, doesn't matter what your title is, doesn't matter how many degrees you have gained, doesn't matter how much you earn, what your status is, Leadership comes from the point, not from the place of authority, but place of how you can uplift others, how you can help society and people around you. And I think that's the core nugget. And while the first one can help you quickly rise up the ranks, it can give you the sense of achievement because you can see as you're rising and you get bank balance or your paycheck gain that number every time. The other one's more relevant and more holistic. And that's the one society needs to embrace more. And that's what I've discovered through my own journey.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 15:08
So like we discussed, leadership never happens in one moment. It's every decision we make. It's funny you mentioned Steve Jobs, that when we look back, everything sounds mathematical. In reality, that's true. That's how time works. It's the layers and moments in time. If we were to go frame by frame, that shapes us, who we become and who we are. Back in 2024, I was about to finish my MBA, which was from University of Illinois, and I started reflecting back on why did I join the program. University of Illinois Harvard Business School has a line called Business on Purpose. What they explain and how they explain, despite being a public Ivy League university, is that everything matters. You know, you can go and you can join investment banking sector, or you can join whatever you want to join after, you know, graduating from such a prestigious university. But the most important thing for business is to anchor itself on purpose. And while purpose has become a bit of a cliché and bit of a, you know, nifty word that everyone likes to use, what defines purpose becomes far more important when leaders shape their decisions, like we were discussing earlier, in terms of you can say what my purpose and what my why is versus how you enact it in your life. So how businesses enact purpose becomes far more important thing than precious thing. So when I started reflecting back on my career, and when I started looking back on why I would stick with a company for 3 or 5 years and then join another one, giving myself a false sense of hope, every time I'll join a company and I'll say, I think I have found my purpose because it looks exactly the same, you know, with purpose plastered on wall and everything looks hunky-dory. And no disrespect to any work that I've done so far. I'm proud of my career and companies that I've worked with. What I felt was it is not connecting with my own purpose in life. So when I came back from the US 2024, I asked myself that, is it the same rat race that I want to be part of, or do I want to shape and reshape and change my career and see what I will be in 10 years' time. You can't expect different results by doing same thing over and over again. And I wasn't happy with the results. I wasn't looking for adding another zero to my paycheck. I wasn't looking for adding another title to my portfolio. All I was looking for, what I'm going to do with this meaningful journey that I've done with University of Illinois. By the time I was about to finish my MBA and what it would look like, I had absolutely no idea about that I was about to embark on writing a book. I literally had no idea. It took me about a week's time. You know, I came back, discussed with my wife, Sari, and she's such a strong champion of what I want to do in my life. And her response was, Dave, if you think this is difficult right now, think how hard it will be in 5 or 10 years' time when you will lose your cognitive abilities a bit more and when you might have more commercial or financial commitments. So what you think is hard right now will get much more harder in 5 years. So I'd rather want you to do it now and deal with it, whatever it might be. I had no idea of what kind of journey I was about to embark on. You know, almost on a week's notice, I pick a redundancy, I am jobless, and I come back home and I had this habit of journaling stuff. When I can't figure out what's going on in my life or I can't extract meaning out of situation, I just journal stuff, having a conversation, having a yarn with me. I started journaling and by January 2025, last year, I had Some 7,000-8,000 words. And Sari comes back home and she asked me, Dave, I leave you where you're sitting and I come back exactly at the same spot where you're sitting and dinner's not ready. Dog hasn't gone out for the walk. What's happening? And I suppose there was element of fear that there are some cracks building in our relationship. You know, husband going through midlife crisis or whatnot. Element of genuine care and empathy that, you know, she was worried about me. And she asked, do I need to send you on your boys' trip and you go for camping or whatnot, whatever you boys do? Do I need to get everyone in a room and get our help circle?
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 19:00
Do an intervention.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 19:02
Kind of, yes. And I sheepishly said, Sari, I think I might have written a book. She was absolutely flabbergasted. She was, wait a minute, you tell me that I'm about to write a book. You tell me I'm thinking about writing a book. You don't tell me that I have written a book. And what do you mean I might have written a book? It's a verb. You have or you haven't. And My response was, actually, I really don't know what it means to write a book. I've been just trying to distill my thoughts. And finally, I have been able to articulate for the first time that I've— what I've been wanting to say for my last 18 years. Yeah, every boardroom meeting, every decision where I felt unease, every time where I came back home and cried that, you know, I don't want to go back to work because it wasn't what aligned with my value system or whatnot. For the first time in my life, I've been able to write and articulate what I've been wanting to say. So I showed it to her 26 of January, Australia Day. I exactly remember it was like, you know, 5 AM in the morning, sun was out, and I'm sitting there with printed copy of it because she promised she will read it on Australia Day weekend. And I've been waiting to show it to her because I had no courage to show it to anyone else. At about 9, she asked me to basically give her space, and she said, take the dog for a walk, come back in 3 hours' time. I came back and all I could see was red ink smudged everywhere. And I said, this is not going be pretty because she empowered me to walk away from my well-set career. And now she's not going to just say, this is all good. And exactly what she said, she said, first 7, 8 pages, these absolute travesty. This is really bad. I couldn't make sense of what you've been trying to say, but because I can see the pain that you've been going through and I love you, I persevered. By the time I get to 8-page type, this is beautiful. You need to share it with the world, but this is not going to be easy. You really have to work hard on it. And I crashed. I started crying and she hugged me. She said, what is it? I said, I thought this is done. This is how far I needed to go. And I've already gotten to the point. You're saying this is going to be harder from here. And I thought my work is done. And she said, no, because if this is what you're choosing to do, then this is going to be hard. And from that point we sat down, we did our finances, how long we can push it through. I started reaching out to people and from one to another, it became a team. I found my editor in New York. I found my designer in Canada, and it became a global team and we started working on it. And what I thought 7,000 words was a book, I was absolutely wrong. It took us 15, 16 revisions all the way until September, and this was back end of January, to basically put it together as a polished book. And had I known that this is what I was about to embark on, I wouldn't have started. And that's what I call in the book, the whole theory of good enough plans. You don't need to define your whole journey before you start. It's always one step at a time. How do you eat an elephant? One bit at a time.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 22:59
Sure. I didn't find the model in a textbook. I found this model in my own journey of living in absolute panic, spending time in corporate trenches, sitting in those boardrooms and facing that massive pressure and realizing what it means to practically be a leader and living and passing through those decisions when you have to make those decisions, whether you are being bombarded by the KPIs, the matrix structures, and the whole jargon of strategies and everything that MBA schools typically teach you. And from that perspective, when I look at the world right now, anything that defines our world and its chaos is an ocean or that uncharted territory that collective humanity as we are working into. We have never been in a world where unprecedented been thrown at us so many times. We look back in political ecosystem, or we look back at economic or social structure right now, how we are seeing world's changing. The way everything is changing right now, it has not been at a pace that it's happening right now that we are living in. And we think this is going to stop. It is going to get even more faster. It is going to get even more crazier. So from that perspective, when I look back at what defines leadership, to me, nautical leadership is the perfect way and perfect metaphor, because it doesn't define how big of a vessel that you have got, a ship or a boat or dinghy, whatever you've got, and can predict the outcomes of whether you will be successful on your journey or not, but defines what happens in the confinements of that vessel. Yeah, that interplay of what happens between the crew and the leader and how they make decisions collectively, and how they take that opportunity to make that journey collectively rather than a leader forcing his or her crew to push the ship wherever this vessel needs to go. When we look back, and my own fascination with nautical and leadership stories, you can see that, you know, the biggest and mightiest of the ships at the time, Titanic, right?
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 24:56
Yeah.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 24:57
But at the same time, you can see some of these nautical leaders were successful repeatedly, you know, journey after another. Yeah. And those others, you know, failed at the same time. So when you start defining what really happened in the confinements of the ship, I believe there is so much to learn for us. And then I started implying these same principles on all different kinds of leadership, where whatever, you know, whatever scenario, whatever decision-making that we can put through, I found nautical leadership just works every time. But what I'm saying is leadership is a million things. Leadership is charisma. Leadership is storytelling. Leadership is technical abilities. Leadership is a whole lot of— whole gamut of things. But when we look back at leaders who were successful and who were not, They can have one thing over other. We can see that, you know, there were leaders who were non-charismatic, yet they were successful. We can see leaders who had vision, yet were not successful. We can see leaders who were not successful and successful, despite their ability to really transcend and convert that vision into reality. But what defines leadership is basically interplay of these three elements that I talked about in Nautical Leadership Model. Now, Beacon, Wayfinder, and Seafarer. Beacon is your purpose anchored in values. And both of these, both these things are really important. Purpose has to be Anchoring values. You can't choose one over other. The second part, Wayfinder, your ability to be agile and adaptable. Things are going to change. We spoke about being chaotic and unprecedented world that we live in. And third part being Seafarer, your ability to take the helm, take the control and make decisions with courage, yet having ability to relinquish control when you need to let other people on your team make those decisions because they might be better in making those decisions. So that interplay of these three elements in one leader all at the same time. And at times this one role when the situation needs defines how successful a leadership or a situation will be.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 27:54
Absolutely, man. And there are two fundamental elements of decision-making when you are in leadership position. As a leader, if you don't understand the impact of decision you make and how far it will impact others. And if you don't understand that part, you're not first of all being a leader. And what I'm trying to say is in a situation, let's say you are to make a decision where you are to choose suppliers. If you don't understand that suppliers have got families, suppliers have got communities, it's all coming from a certain community, then your one decision will impact not just one person, not just your balance sheet, but there are people behind the curtain who will get impacted. You are not understanding leadership. That's the one big thing that, you know, we need to make sure modern leaders are understanding when they're making these decisions. Once you get to that point, then the two elements of decision fatigue or decision-making start. Number one is just the simple element of that we are biological machines, we are physiological entities where every time we make a decision, we take a chunk of our decision-making ability as we go along. Even simple, timid decisions like what I'm going to wear, what I'm going to eat, Mon, like you mentioned, they are as complicated as what supplier I'm going to choose, what contract I'm about to sign, what hiring we are going to, to, to do. People don't understand that for brain to comprehend those and make those decision, it takes same amount of computation and same amount of power. Now, how we consume and how we make these decisions is based on purely data and analytical abilities by looking at numbers, and I can just make a decision based on what numbers tell me. If that's the case, then AI will be far more better at it, right? AI can compute numbers far more better than us, and we'll often make those decisions right if that was But that's not true because then the second element of decision-making comes where we take the emotional weight of leadership. When we understand that every time we make a decision, there is an emotional element to how it impacts me as human. When I choose to fire somebody or when I choose to put somebody on performance review, it does impact me as human, as being human. That's why sometimes we are a bit edgy when I go back home. I don't understand why I'm edgy and I go and yell at my wife. Not because I want to, because I have not been able to process the emotional weight that I carry along with me when I make those decisions. So leaders have to understand that part and really get to the point where when you're making these decisions, you get the relevant information, but then also equip yourself when you're making those decisions. Don't make a critical decision at 5 PM on a Friday afternoon when you're tired working 5 days, and you have to understand that part.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 32:17
It's a very complicated subject, Maz. When we look back at history, we can see what really pushed humanity this far. We have been told a different narrative of leadership, and reality has been different. And I'll tell you what the narrative is. Narrative is that leaders come with cape and hero-like posture. They come and they just win. And they know how to succeed. They are brutal. They just make decisions. They just get to where we got to. They just push everyone and they get us that far. It's very masculine definition of leadership that's been defined. But over the last, at least in a decade's time, we can see that, you know, softer elements of leadership like empathy, leadership, vulnerability, all those elements are being celebrated, are being embraced. And finally, we have started to decode what leadership means. And that's what really pushed humanity to get this point. Now, I can't comment on that better. That was because this masculine energy just wanted to control society. And we changed the narrative, the history, the way not it is, but how it's written and who it's written by. So we can see that the whole facet of leadership really changed by the narrative we've been told. We've been told the stories of Alexander the Great, and we've been told the stories of everyone who basically decided to win, not by the narrative of that how we really got from savanna in Africa and basically conquered this whole habitable planet. Was it because of of the killings we were doing, or was it because of the protection and the softer elements of leadership that humanity was being nurtured through? There's a lot of research on it that now being uncovered, and we can see there's one facet there. So from that point of view, how I see leadership, it wasn't because leadership got started because somebody said, I want to have a title. When we were living as 100 people in a tribe, and there were little tribes in savannah, somebody mentioned, I wanted a title, or I want to be leader. That's not how leadership Leadership started when one particular season we had excess of bread and we looked across, we looked at each other and we said, wait a minute, whom do I trust? So when I'm going for hunting, I can leave my bread. So when next season, when we don't have excess bread, this person will distribute bread evenly. There was no title. There wasn't a chief or a leader defined yet. And I looked across and I said, wait a minute, I don't trust you. I don't trust you. But this person gave me reasons to trust. And those were the soft elements of leadership that define trust. Those are softer elements of leadership that define that everybody started trusting this one person because they exhibited all those qualities of leaders without being leader. So we did this for decades, we did this for generations, and somehow we defined that this person is a leader. Now, from outside perspective, another tribe came, another tribe looked at us, wait a minute, we are being massacred every now and then, we die of drought and famine, what is that distinguishes us from them? Is this person. So maybe we need to choose our leader too. And what they looked at was pile of stock of bread and stone and rocks this person had that he was supposed, or she was supposed to distribute, versus I can collect all that stuff quickly, then I can be a leader. So that's one way of looking at leadership, that it became collectivistic tendency of gaining stuff so I can gain more power and more influence and hold stuff so I can be a leader. That's one way of looking at it. That's how historically leadership's narrative changed, that the tribe or the people that we decided as a leader for decades and centuries, few generations later, we forgot what leadership was. But more importantly, back in 1960s and '70s, when we started defining post-Depression period, Wall Street was looking at how we can get investors back, how we can raise money. Came Milton Friedman. He was well-celebrated economist of his time, and he defined leadership as companies success criteria. And success criteria for company, as he defined by his manifesto, was the only purpose for companies is to make value for shareholders. That was the first. And over time, over 10 years of his work, he added the word lawfully. So the definition became as long as you can create value for shareholders lawfully. Now, lawfully is a pretty flimsy word because lawfully basically sits on the tendency of what is the minimum acceptable criteria for a member to be part of the side, because when somebody breaks trust, that's when we define law. Until that time, we don't need law. Until the first person starts stealing, we don't need laws about stealing. Until the first person breaks speed limit, we don't need speed limits. So the lawfully is the minimum acceptable criteria, but Milton Friedman's definition was that's the highest criteria, that you can make money, you can create value for companies as long as— or shareholders— as long as you do it lawfully. So by the definition, when organizations define what will the success criteria for leadership, people who are leading these organizations, we have defined the lowest criteria to be members of the society. So the definition of leadership became the whole game of KPIs, numbers, profits, revenues that you can generate, and that defined your success. And I think that was one of the biggest turning points in human history that changed the definition of leadership. Now, where we are right now, I do feel through my work I can read, what I can see, what my research— it is time for us to pivot. And we really need— so relevant and so important for us as human society to fix the narrative, because if we won't, then probably it'll be the last decision that we'll be making as collective humanity together.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 37:38
Yes. It was interesting in your book, Dave, you talked a bit about Kennedy and the Cuban crisis, and now looking at where we're at with our current government, US government, and big decisions in Venezuela, you know, it's an interesting period in history. I have to say, for those of you that have read read lots of leadership books, which I have, this book is a really terrific hands-on, but so practical. But I love the fact you've got loads of examples of leaders that were successful and leaders that weren't in it as well. And the beacon, wayfinder, and seafarer approach, I think, is a testament to you. And it's a testament that you also combined a global team to pull the book together and got more global perspective. Because I heard Michelle Obama, just back to Mazzi, answers question talking about are we embracing the changing way forward in leadership and considering heart-centered leadership and empathy. And what Michelle Obama said recently is, you know, we've never experienced such change as we are experiencing it now. And we as parents, we can listen deeply to our children, but they are navigating a world that's way different than we've ever, ever experienced. And our set ways of living is not going to be the future. So we have to be really just genuinely empathic and open. And that model of being a wayfarer, so doing your research, then being a seafarer and stepping forward based on the gut and what the research says to you and what your community tells you, both customers and opponents and staff, then, you know, we can step forward. And I suppose my observation being a recruiter of 30 years is, yeah, those leaders that are not embracing the deep listening, the empathic listening to their teams, are going to be challenged for the future. And as parents, the same. We've got to step aside a bit and listen to what the younger generations are telling us because it is a very different world and different landscape. And I also recently did a talk for sort of high-level corporate organization that are known for sort sort of patriarchal style of leadership. I was quite enamored by How to Lead Teams in Times of Change, and we did— talking about leadership, you know, if this crew is all behind me, so we did a bit of a visual. If you're behind me but we can see the vision, you all know what the vision is, but I'm standing at the front. And if we use your nautical thing, if I'm at the front, at the bow of the boat, I can't see everyone behind me. I have no idea what you're all doing, what you're thinking, what you're feeling, what you think about me. But if I then move to the back, we all see the vision. As the leader, I see all of you. I see your fears, I see your insecurities, I see your own leadership, I see you working together or coming apart, and whether or not you're looking back at me for direction in this moment as we're they're sort of veering off course, if you like. And that really spoke into them, even that visual of how you actually lead teams through times of change. And I think Mon and myself being parents, you know, it really does lean into— it really canvases whether you're leading teams in the corporate sector, whether it's a team in a family and things going off course, or when things are going on course and how you celebrate that I think is equally, you know, even more important and noticing that and acknowledging it and noticing when people are living into their values and that you're all aligned and really building that up, not necessarily always looking for the problems.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 42:06
I'm just humbled to be here and it's always a pleasure to spend time with you both just to learn and gain from your wisdom. And about the book, It's Not Everything, my mission is to dismantle this outdated illusion of control. And like you were saying, with that vision of leader, you know, standing at the back, that's where leaders are supposed to be because that's when you can cover other people's back. Back, not show them the back when they need it most. That's when you can see who needs the most help. But at the same time, be prepared to get in the front if brunt force comes at you. You are there to protect them. You are there to make decisions. And that's the beauty. Leadership is not being in one position. Leadership is being constantly moving where you need to be and spend time, most time at the back, because effectively we want to be where things are not chaotic all fine. Because if you're constantly firefighting, then something is not right. So, as you mentioned, if you can't afford to come at the back, then you need to understand, you know, something's not right. You can't live in other two scenarios, either in the middle or at the front. For me, if one thought that I can leave your audience with, and then to your point about learning and unlearning, learning is hard. Most people never get to a point where they learn. Their learning mindset and their growth mindset is But the hardest part is to unlearn. We think we gain experience, we become more rigid. We become at the point where we create this illusion that we are Mr. All and Mrs. Know-it-all. The most relevant thing leaders can do and to learn is to embrace vulnerability and say, I don't know. As grows the wisdom of the island of my wisdom, so grows the shoreline of my ignorance.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 43:45
Yeah. Yeah.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 43:48
And most philosophers have broken it in a very beautiful way that that the only one thing that I know is that I don't know enough of about the world is the most relevant thing leaders can embrace. And leadership isn't about knowing everything. Leadership is not about knowing and be the one who knows everything in a room. Leadership is about being curious. Leadership is about empowering others and lifting others who know more than you. And if you think you are the smartest one in the room, you are not there yet. Be humble enough to think that there are people smarter than you in the room, and you are just there to uplift and empower them to make the right decisions. And after everything and anything that we do, yes, we have got families, we have got communities around us, we have got bills to pay and all that stuff. Don't forget that leadership is not a race for titles. Leadership is not something as a badge of honor that you need to wear. Leadership is ultimately a profound responsibility that we should, must take it. It's an obligation that works towards serving humanity and leaving the world a better place than what we found it. So don't forget that.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 45:08
People can find this book at whatever platform they find their books. It's available on Amazon. If it's not available at a shop near you, you can ask them to order a copy and get you a hard copy. We are about to release the Audible version of it as well. So yeah. Yeah.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 45:20
And where can we find you, Dave, if people want you to speak at their events?
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 45:24
On my website, www.davechauhan.com, is my name. Or LinkedIn is the best way of connecting, and any other platform, social media platform that they're on.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 45:33
Fantastic. I'll certainly be giving you a shout out on LinkedIn. It's a great book, and encouraging my husband to read it. He's a boat owner, and I think he'll relate to it quite well too.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 45:44
I'd love to hear what you think.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 45:45
So thank you so much, Dave Chauhan. It's so lovely to have you on Consigui Heroes Grit to Grace Grit Diaries. Lovely to hear your story and the learnings that you've made along the way. Thank you so much. Thanks, Maz. Thanks, Mon. Thank you for joining us on the Grit Diaries from Grit to Grace. If today's story has moved you, share it with someone who needs a little hope. Remember, from grit We can find grace, and from grace we can find inspiration. Until next time, look for the joy, keep safe, stay grounded, and never forget that there is a strength within your own story. Take care.
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
I love that. And I love to, and I think Mon and I were sort of canvassing going through values the other day. And it's also, I love putting it through the filter of how then we make a decision and what your perspective was at the time, but also it, am I actually, I'm saying that these are the things that I value, but Am I actually living in value? 5 out of 10. Am I saying that I value leadership? Do I value family? But I'm actually spending more time at, you know, the proverbial office, you know. So it's sort of really— I love that you identify values as such a core piece in leadership. And then that extends to the workplace, but it extends to the family and how you are in your friendships. Yeah, I just want to pick up too on the fact that You were raised really by your grandmother, who you thought was your mother for a long part of your life, and then you discovered she wasn't your mother. So it must have been an incredible period as a child because you were told one thing and then suddenly you realize what the truth was. But what I was listening recently to John Clarke, the comedian, he was born in New Zealand and he ended up always on the end of A Current Affair with something funny at the end. I don't know if you know him, but he was raised by two very different parents, one very aggressive, were quite militant and the other quite caring. But, you know, what he said out of all of that, what he learned was there's two sides of a story. He can quickly look at a situation and look at both sides, which is so helpful as a comedian. And in leadership, that's really important, you know, be able to see the side of your employees with empathy, yet knowing what may be so important right now for the organization and for the direction strategically. So I think that upbringing, back to you, must have taught you so much. Do you want to share a bit more about that?
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 13:39
And isn't it great when you look back, as you sort of alluded to before, you could have framed your upbringing as trauma and may have never really sort of got to the level that you have and stayed in that trauma framework, which would be— yeah, completely. You know, I mean, that is hard to deal with. In your case, you've chosen to see it as both sides of the coin, as you mentioned, Mon, and actually use those to really accentuate this pathway that you're going on and bringing that dynamic leadership by actually embracing both of those. And as Steve Jobs said, you can only connect the dots looking back. But now, as you've sort of gone that full circle and, you know, amalgamating now into your incredible book, which I think Mon's going to chat about— yeah, what a fabulous book. And before we go into the book, I just want to ask you a little bit about, you know, what was the pivotal moment to create the book? And just tell us a little bit about why you decided to stop the corporate career, become an alchemist, dependent on your own income, and create your own book and your own leadership consulting business. So do you want to talk a bit about what made you make that pivot? Because I think a lot of people today are realizing with the world of AI that they're going to have to start to think of new things to do. It's such an opportunity. It's such a time where, you know, the world is your oyster. You can have a portfolio career and you can do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. So talk a little bit about what made you decide to write your book, Captain Set.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 21:51
I like your analogy too, in your book, about just the roadmap, you know, mapping out, you know, the journey like you would if you were setting out on a bush track walk. Think about the risks. You prepare, you plan, you do your research, you look at where you've got to go, and you look at the data that tells you what the weather's about and everything else. But at the end of the day, on that very morning, you might have to completely swap things around.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 22:15
Absolutely.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 22:16
But just go for it. Step forward, put your boots on, and off you go.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 22:20
How many times world would have devoid of important research work that's been done, important discoveries, inventions that have been made, had that first step not been taken?
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 22:29
That's right.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 22:30
That is the most important step.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 22:31
Yeah. I love this saying that perfection is the death of creativity, and I think it's so true. So your book, I think it's a fantastic book. I think it's a great book for leaders to talk about and look at the three areas you talk about. It's called Captain Set Sail, and you talk about being a beacon, a wayfinder, and a seafarer, and that those three areas as a leader is required. You know why you chose that as a way of describing leadership? You want to talk a bit about that?
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 26:47
Yeah, I love the fact with Wayfinder, it's about, you know, looking for research and involving others in decisions and talking to customers and encouraging staff that will, you know, challenge your views and rewarding them for that in team meetings and rewarding people to share when they've failed and what they learned from it. And that encouragement of vulnerability is fantastic in the climate that we're in now. And I also loved what you talked about in decision fatigue too. I know when I was building a house, I'd go out to a restaurant and people would say, what do you want for dinner? I'd say, you choose something for me, I can't make a decision anymore. I've just been all week choosing tiles and I'm done. You choose, I'll eat anything. And I think as a leader, you do get to certain points, particularly at the end of terms, where you are absolutely flat on your back. You can't make a decision anymore about anything. You have to be very mindful of that and be obviously drawing energy within as a leader, but also handing decisions to others, you know, and encouraging people to make decisions when you're not in that space to make a decision. Do you wanna talk a bit about that? I really love what you spoke about decision fatigue.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 30:25
Not.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 30:26
Because if that decision can impact someone's livelihood, don't make the decision. Give yourself time and walk away and tell yourself, I might be overconfident on my abilities to make this decision, and impact on someone's life may be massive and huge. So I should refrain from making that decision. It comes with humility when you have to tell yourself that, you know, you're not ready yet.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 30:45
Yeah, the timing of the week in business is so powerful. You know, I've read an article years ago about the rhythm of the week. You don't do sales on a Monday or a for example, because no one wants to talk to you. And I said to Maz, I love our morning sessions. I just feel inspired. I don't want to do podcasts at night because I'm spent. I've got no space for someone else by that time. It's true, isn't it? By then you probably have made 50+ decisions. So nighttime, you know, I think mine, you know, and Davey probably say the same, you know, reflecting on where your personal energy is, is usually sort of 7 till about midday. Yeah, you just like, you can just max out what you're doing. Ask me to do the same tasks at nighttime, it's a struggle. Luckily we're both morning people, Maz, because if you are not, because I have had colleagues that are evening people and I'm a morning person, and it's actually been a challenge because I've had to set emails and wait. I can't send them, you know, too early to them because I know their brain won't focus. I set them for the afternoon, 1 o'clock, that they arrive in their inbox.
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 31:46
That's where you have to be mindful. You have to understand yourself as individual human being. And most leaders don't do this work. This is where it becomes critical. If you can't lead yourself, if you can't work on yourself in a simple way, you're not capable of leading others.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 32:02
Yeah. Are you seeing the change, Dave, as in modern leadership and the focus in on that as the model has changed? Are you seeing the shift or are you still finding people are holding on to the old sort of patriarchal type models of leadership?
Dave Chauhan (Guest) · 41:16
Yeah.
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 41:17
To your point, Maz, that one at the back of the bushwalk is usually the one that can see what's happening more than the one at the front. You know, they can't really see the whole tribe and how everyone's managing. So that leadership model of, you know, rallying behind, I love what you say there. And that probably leads to just closing out, Dave, your— the celebration of you and celebrating a milestone. You must be delighted that you're at the end of that year when you thought you'd written your book, and then your wife says to you, no, you got— now it's a big, hard, long journey ahead for the next 12 months. So you must be celebrating that your book is out there. And I'd love to hear some closing words, 2 or 3 little sage pieces of advice you'd like to share with the audience. For people out there navigating as leaders in whatever community they're in?
Mon & Mazz (Host) · 44:52
Oh, that's fantastic, Dave. Dave Chauhan, it's so lovely to have you on Consigui Heroes and with your book Captain Set Sail. Can you tell us where people can find it? The Nautical Guide to Leadership in an Uncharted World. How do people find this book?
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