Dan Silberberg: From Politics to Leadership and the Power of Seeing Potential

Dan Silberberg’s life spans politics, business, philosophy, and personal transformation. He began his journey in politics at age 12 and was Bobby Kennedy’s youth coordinator in California, present the night of the assassination. By 23, he was already growing businesses, and decades later, he continues to build and mentor with intensity. After founding five startups, at 75 he is launching another, and living what he calls a “fully expressed” life.

Dan brings a layered perspective to leadership and kindness, one based on years of study, experience, and reflection. He describes kindness not as a single trait, but as a multidimensional practice: emotional, cognitive, behavioral, spiritual, and ontological. For Dan, it is about presence. “How do I see in you what you do not see in yourself?” he asks. That inquiry shapes his leadership model, one focused on helping others step into their potential – the next best version of themselves.

He sees kindness as having boundaries, clarity, and truth. “Avoiding a difficult conversation may look kind, but it is often an unkind act,” he says. He challenges surface-level niceness and pushes for honesty rooted in care. One formative story he shared was about a sales employee who was not a good fit. Instead of firing him, Dan sat down, affirmed the person’s character, and offered to help him find a more aligned role. That individual thrived in a different environment best suited for his skills and inner genius. For Dan, this was real kindness, thoughtful redirection rather than rejection.

His leadership philosophy is about engaging others in shared ownership. “Leadership today is an ecosystem of inclusiveness,” he said. He believes in coaching, mentoring, and letting people feel seen, heard, and that they matter. Drawing on Carl Rogers, he emphasized: “Our deepest yearning is to be accurately seen in the here and now with positive regard, consistently and unconditionally.”

Dan also reflected on how resilience shaped him. He has faced bullying since childhood, from grade school nicknames to discrimination in college and the workplace. “You can fall to the victimhood of it, or you could fall to the resilience side, and I think I chose more the resilience side,” he said. Dan believes that “either you bend the world to you or you bend to the world. If you bend the world to you then you can be present, co-create, and be in integrity. If you bend to the world, you embrace resentment, victimhood, jealousy, and default your personal responsibility. It is not easy, but the reward is you grow, develop, and reach your highest potential.”

Kindness, to Dan, is not passive. It is about honest engagement, shared purpose, and seeing others fully. In a world that often defaults to surface-level interactions, Dan Silberberg wants to lead with presence and purpose.

“The most kindness you can have for yourself is to get rid of the masks you hide behind and emerge to become your authentic self.”

Dan Silberberg is a leadership strategist and five-time founder who believes kindness means having empathy, offering clarity, and seeing potential in others. Keep an eye out for more interviews.