Season 3; Episode 2: Freedom, Responsibility and Community with Peter Gordon

Peter Gordon is the Chief Investment Officer and Head of Commercial Real Estate Debt for a large asset management firm. Peter is the type of leader who instinctively forms his leadership philosophy and approach and then realizes there are a few books out there that back up those instincts. Peter’s leadership analogies range from parenthood, tennis, golf, political ideologies…and through his metaphors we gain some fabulous insights.

Key Takeaways from this Episode:

Leadership, like parenthood, is a shift from being about you to something bigger than you

· Working with people, towards a shared goal, seeing the energy they bring… the reflected glory of other people's successes, all of those things, have become an important part of what gets me up in the morning.

· Leading people has helped me articulate what I think are my strengths, and to look at other people and see the strengths in them.

Finding the right balance between autonomy and agency is like a tennis racket grip

· If you grip a tennis racket too tightly, your swing changes, your flow changes, and your shot comes out differently. If you learn how to moderate your grip, then you get a better result out of the tennis racket.  

· There's enough pressure that you feel someone is there and cares, but it's not so tight that it's asphyxiating, or changing your behavior or changing the shape of things. 

Bring others into the conversation

· Meeting someone for the first time, observe them, see how they contribute and how they add to the whole.

· Bring people in, make them feel welcome, understand where they're going to contribute.

· Use all sorts of tricks, like humor, self-deprecation, teasing, anything to get people to feel recognized, and they're not just joining as ‘person number three’ in the group.

Psychological safety is essential

· If you're not threatened, physiologically or mentally, then you do your best work. Then you're more willing to push the boundaries, say something that comes top of mind, just share.

· If someone doesn't want to share, is feeling threatened, is feeling psychologically out of sorts, then clashes are more pronounced. Our natural reaction is to say, ‘That person's making me feel this way, and therefore I'm reacting to it that way’, and then you get into these spirals, and it takes a lot of work to unpack. 

· In work, you don't give time to those relationships in the same way that you do in your personal life. That's why it's incumbent on all of us to tread a little more cautiously into work relationships.

· Psychological safety applies to flexibility in your thinking and your approach to people.

A well-functioning team needs a mix of people with complementary skills

· I like existing in the land of the misfit toys, because it means that there's a lot of different toys there that bring something different to the mix. You don't want everyone to be producing in a certain way with a linear thought process.

· Admire the skills people have that you don't have. It's about creating complements of skills to create a better whole. Help the complementary skillsets work better together.

Leadership is a culmination of your life experiences 

· Leadership is not an on/off switch. It is something that comes from your life experiences; the culmination of things people have said to you along the way, the experiences you've had, the reactions you’ve received. You have to establish what kind of a leader you are which might change at different times in your life.

· Is there ever a day where you're not learning? Yes, the day you walk out, and you get run over by a bus. 

· The learning, while it's painful, very quickly turns into satisfaction and enjoyment. 

The freedoms of leadership require personal responsibility

· With freedom comes massive, personal responsibility. You have to show up. You have to do your bit. No one's telling you, do this, do that.

· Even the most junior person in a group has the ability to lead, to say this is what I can do and I'm leading you to give me more, because I can handle it. That's leadership, too, reverse leadership. It's really important, because now the group starts to come together in a different way, which bleeds into personal responsibility. 

Communities create an entrepreneurial spirit 

· Creating an entrepreneurial spirit in large organizations is like being a parent in the crowd watching your child play a sport in middle school. Your boss is cheering you. It's enthusiastic. It's not focusing on the stuff that you're doing badly; it’s focusing on the good stuff.

· Communities, by definition, are not about the self. It’s about how you respect and champion people, how you recognize the good work they're doing. Then, people don’t want to let the community down.

· Place a greater level of importance on, does it make them happy? If it makes them happy, then they will go back and get more. It is Pavlovian. You will go back and get more. Success will beget success.

· Enjoy and celebrate the small victories and don’t dwell on the things that go wrong, because stuff goes wrong all the time. It’s the ability to be happy about other people's little things, little things that go right. 

Links & Resources:

· The Body Keeps the Score

· Forget Flexibility. Your Employees Want Autonomy

To learn more about my work in executive coaching, leadership development and team effectiveness check out my website, connect with me on LinkedIn or email me at winnie@winnifred.org.  

Reach out and tell me what was helpful about today’s episode or any suggestions you have for my show.

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I look forward to sharing another transformative conversation with you next week!

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