Tuesday Mar 25, 2025

056 | How to Lead: When the Title Came Without a Map w/ Dee Ntšala

What happens when performance, people, and purpose collide.

Today, we’re joined by Dee Ntšala, founder of Nova Conxulting, whose work sits at the intersection of neuroscience, wellness, DIEB principles, and leadership strategy. Dee equips high-performing executives, founders, and teams with the tools to lead.

Every time I’ve been asked to fix a performance issue, it was actually a leadership issue. That’s a people problem.” – Dee Ntšala

Too many organizations think they’re solving for low numbers when they’re really facing high dysfunction. Promotions happen without preparation. Culture is treated like a memo. And when the spreadsheets show a dip, the blame lands on people instead of the systems leading them.

But as Dee, reminds us in this episode:

“If you're a founder, if you're a corporate leader, please hear us out here. We get it. There is a cost impact to all of this work. But the benefit on the other end of it is so, so worth the invest.”

We're talking sustained transformation. Dee has worked with top-tier leaders across corporate, nonprofit, and academic spaces, and she breaks down what most leadership programs miss:

Why micromanagement often signals a deeper gap in trust and team readiness
How real leadership requires self-awareness before strategy
And what happens when companies ask for change but resist the process required to make it stick

“Corporate has an unhealthy relationship with time and results when it comes to human behavior. Humans aren’t machines. You can’t flip a switch and expect transformation.”

This episode is for high-level leaders and founders who want better—but are done chasing surface-level solutions. If you’re ready to stop wasting budget on temporary fixes and start reinforcing the kind of leadership culture that retains talent, drives performance, and creates real alignment—press play.

We also go beyond frameworks and into the lived realities of founders and leaders navigating burnout, mismatched team dynamics, and corporate cultures that reward production over progress. Dee’s refreshingly honest perspective will have you rethinking how you lead, why you lead, and what alignment looks like in real-time.

Next Steps:

Get more leadership insights from Dee Ntšala's interview in Strategic Edge: Power Moves for Businesses + Nonprofits magazine: https://media.feliciafordandco.com/power-moves

056 | How to Lead: When the Title Came Without a Map w/ Dee Ntšala

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