#11 | How To Lead From Where You Are

In this episode, Dr. Dan Freeman draws a sharp line between two types of leadership that look similar on the surface but produce very different results: positional leadership — where authority flows from a title — and calling-based leadership, where influence flows from who you actually are.

If you're reading this and you're in the higher ed, collegiate athletics, or general nonprofit field, I'd love for you to take my survey.

The gap between those two, Dan argues, is exactly where most organizational dysfunction lives. Through the lens of the Advocate Effect, he explores what happens when leaders show up with genuine authenticity — people hear it, see it, and feel it — and how that creates a circular culture where teams move toward the same destination, even if not through the same door. 

The episode closes with a direct challenge: if someone has been dimming your light, that's a diagnostic signal worth paying attention to, not just a motivational cliché. Whether you're leading a department, building a team, or trying to figure out why your current role doesn't feel right, Episode 11 is a call to stop performing the title and start leading from the source.

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📝 If you're reading this and you're in the higher ed, collegiate athletics, or general nonprofit field, I'd love for you to take my survey.

Available for Speaking I'm selectively available for keynotes, leadership retreats, and executive panels on decision-making, organizational culture, and leadership identity. If you're building a lineup for your next event, I'd love to be in that conversation. 

→ Reach out at dan@fsgventures.biz or  YourExecutiveThoughtPartner.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Executive Thought Partner Podcast, where leadership, strategy, and growth intersect. I'm Dr. Daniel Freeman, Executive Thought Partner. This isn't just a podcast about fundraising. It's about how leaders think, decide, and build systems that scale impact across nonprofits, higher education, athletics, and mission-driven enterprises. Here we explore major gifts, governance, culture, and the quiet decisions that determine long-term momentum. If you're leading something that matters and you want clarity with conviction, you're in the right place. Let's get into it. Welcome to episode 11 of the Executive Thought Partner Podcast. Today we're going to talk about how to lead from where you are. You don't need a different title, you need a clear sense of your calling. I want you to think about this question as we go through this episode. Are you leading from your position, your authority, or from who you actually are? That's the mic drop for me. Are you leading from who you actually are? I call that leading with your character. So I got a few questions I want to ask you and I want to talk about today. Do you know the difference between positional leadership and calling base leadership and why the gap between them is where most dysfunction lies? Now remember, all of this is from myself. Unless I'm quoting or citing something else, this is all from me. Now let's talk about positional leadership. Are you just leading from the title you have, using the power that comes with the name on your title to tell people what to do or what you think they should do? You're not a player coach, you're not doing less, you're not necessarily helping the people below you. You're not necessarily helping the people above you. You're just kind of working from the position that you're in. I want you to start talking out loud. I'm just gonna pause for a minute. I want you to think to yourself, am I leading from position and nothing else? Now I want you to think. Calling base leadership. To me, that means that you're using authority. You're just calling out, telling people what to do. You're not in the trenches. Maybe you're calling out to people above you and below you, but you're not giving them a reason why. But then here's where the dysfunction is between those two things. They lack authenticity. We all know those people who have a title, and that is who they are. We all know who people we know people who inflate their egos because they think they can make the play calls, they can call the plays because of their title, and they're just calling plays everywhere, telling everyone what to do. But that gap is the biggest issue. Right now, what I've seen from my friends in the formerly next generation fundraising group, currently the Freeman Philanthropic Collective, from being a leader, from working in frontline fundraising, from being around athletics and having conversations with ADs and presidents. Everyone wants authenticity. Don't be fake. If fundraising is your job, this show is your edge. The Executive Thought Partner Podcast delivers real strategy, real decisions, real conversations and results. That sweet spot where theory meets the real world. Practical insights you can use before your next campaign or conversation, hosted by fundraising experts like myself and my guests, backed by the team at Donorbox. Subscribe wherever you listen for the Executive Thought Partner podcast. You'll thank yourself later. People want to be led by someone who believes in everything that they're doing. When you can lead from somewhere deeper than just the facade from the front, people hear it, see it, and feel it. And if you're doing that, you are most likely making sure they are felt, seen, and heard. And when you can make people feel that way, then you're connected to the advocate effect. Because that's when authentic self-advocacy, what it looks like for leaders who are trained to serve others. So there's that connection there. Let's talk about the advocate effect. I talked about this a little bit in my last podcast. When you are your authentic self and you are leading from your character, you will find other people that do the same. And most likely are aligned with the characteristics of you. Because those characteristics of you are connecting to them. And that's really special. And when you start to create that circular culture where you all believe in the same thing, you're all going in the same path. May not be through the same door, but you're all getting to the same place. You're just looking at it a little bit differently. And you, as a leader, are seeing the authenticity where everyone is different, and you're saying, oh, this is really great. Some people are being innovative. Some people have task and autonomy. They've got that horizontal leadership, which you've heard me talk about before. That's what authenticity looks like. You're allowing each of those people to self-advocate because they don't have to ask your approval to do something because they know exactly what they need to accomplish, but they're doing it in a way that works best for them and shows up well for the organization, institution, or business or corporation. And when you do that, you're teaching people how to lead from where they are. And that shows up differently for mid-level fundraisers, vice presidents, presidents, executive directors of nonprofits, AVPs, directors of corporate founders, general entrepreneurs. That looks different for everybody. And it's hard. You can even look at a president of an institution, and it's hard for a president. They only have one group that is really keeping them in check one-on-one, and that's the Board of Trustees. But then if you start thinking about it, the group that really wants to see the authenticity of that institutional leader, that institutional president, it's going to be the students and the faculty and staff. It's going to be the people that believe you wholeheartedly believe in the mission of the institution because they want to see it just as bad as you do. They want to see it succeed. They want to see it move forward. Those students are paying for you to do that. In fundraising, your donors and prospects and boards, they are investing time and money because they believe you are going to move them forward. I was at a pitch competition for my alma mater. You can see it a little bit on here, UNC Charlotte. I was at a pitch competition last week. Really interesting. Some students that had not prepared, some that really weren't comfortable being up in the spotlight and didn't seem like they were necessarily coached for the actual presentation piece of it. One of them that had the best presentation of everyone, but definitely didn't do actual research on the startup because they would have known immediately that it's really not viable. And there are a ton of other things out there already doing that. And their model, I didn't think, really differentiated themselves. But then you have one or two other students who really are leading from where they are. They've paid money to see an institution move forward. And they know what they want. And I looked at them and thought to myself, man, I wish that there were institutional leaders that wanted to solve problems just as hard as these students want to solve problems. And then I thought to myself, how does that work? How do we train leaders to be authentic? How do we train them to lead in a way that creates the advocate effect for those that report to them? And how do they communicate their vision to their VPs, who then communicate it to their A VPs, who then communicate it to their directors and their associate directors and their associates? How do you do that? Because if you're looking over at an entrepreneur or a founder, they may be the best product person, but they don't understand the vision. They don't know how to be authentic, they don't know how to get the vision and connect with the people. But then also, that's the same issue for quote visionaries, these institutional leaders who are supposed to be setting this vision. And they may have been a provost or an academic, but they don't understand the story. They're a specialist, just like that founder for the entrepreneur, but they don't know how to share the vision. So they need to make sure the people around them can do that. And sometimes those people can't do it either because they've come from large institutions where they had everything they needed and they didn't know how to really create a motivational vision from the lack of vision that the institutional leader is not showing. So that's a double negative. But then you get these rock stars and superstars below them who get it, but they don't have the autonomy to make a difference. Now, what do you do when you don't have the autonomy to make a difference? You have the task. You don't have good communication, but you don't have the autonomy. You can't let anyone dim your light. This is not a motivational slogan. This is a diagnostic signal. I have done that so many times in my career where I have allowed people to dim my light. And when I reflect on that, I feel so beaten down that I allowed others that have done nothing noteworthy except spend money to dim my light, where I have allowed people who couldn't even ask for a gift or couldn't be seen in public because of their own insecurities and inadequacies, can't believe that I've let them dim my light. Do not let anyone dim your light. If you feel like someone is beginning to dim your light and they're not allowing you to be their authentic self, that's because they were never allowed to be their authentic self. But here's the kicker: that's their problem. And if they're allowing their problem to infiltrate you and dim your light, you could figure out how to have a conversation with them. Or you could figure out your exit strategy. Because if they're doing it to you, they've done it to other people. And there's probably a reason you just came into that role. Or it's probably another reason why they're doing it right now. And when someone's trying to dim your light, that can also be a sign of them feeling threatened. Because the brighter you get, the dimmer they feel like they will get. And if they're already feeling inadequate, then they're always going to look at it in scarcity and self-preservation that if your light gets brighter, theirs gets dimmer. But the real truth is that when you work on teams, when your light gets brighter, everyone else's light should also get brighter at the same time. Now, as we get to the close of this, I want you to answer this honestly. In your current role, are you leading from your position or from your actual calling? Are you leading from what you believe you should be doing in that calling-based leadership? Is that your calling? Are you following your values? Are you being authentic? And what's the difference between the two? Because that's the dysfunction that is holding you back. Thanks for coming today to listen to episode 11 of the Executive Thought Partner podcast, lead from where you are. Again, I hope everyone loves my new background. Really working on that. I am proud of that. We're almost at 12 episodes, and I hope you listen to all of them. Thanks. Thank you for listening to the Executive Thought Partner Podcast. If today's conversation helped clarify your leadership or expand your thinking, share it with someone navigating meaningful decisions. Until next time, think clearly, lead intentionally, and build what lasts.