A short spoken anecdote by Simon Sinek about a senior leader, Peter Intimaggio, who refused to answer direct questions from junior staff. Sinek explains that this leadership style forced self-reliance, encouraged people to battle-test ideas with peers, and balanced psychological safety with high standards and constructive challenge. The piece contrasts being friendly versus being friends and emphasises asking for thoughtful (not perfect) answers.
Chapters
One of the best leaders I ever had. Young in my career. I was a junior, I think the official title was junior idiot.
Had a big ad agency and my boss, it wasn't actually my boss, it was my boss's boss. It was the big boss who ran the whole, the whole group. His name was Peter Intimaggio. One of the best leaders I've ever had in my life. I wouldn't call him warm, he was very nice, but he didn't exude warmth, you know, so that goes to that nice thing like, you know, you don't have to be everybody's friend. Yeah, you have to be friendly, but you don't have to be everybody's friend. In fact, that's a different conversation. Trying to be everybody's friend actually undermines leadership. Different conversation, but Peter never answered a damn question ever, right? Hey Peter, what should I do? What do you think we should do? You know, Peter, I, I've exhausted all the, the, the, that's why I'm coming to you, because I don't know. He goes, well, what do you think? Just tell me what you think. He never answered a damn question. And it was at times excruciating. What ended up happening is he taught me self reliance, he taught me to think for myself, but he also taught me to bounce ideas of other people. Because if I had to go tell Peter who's my boss's boss, what my idea was, I be, I better be pretty confident that I, that I battle tested it with a few people before he shoots all the holes in it. So it taught me to ask for help. And this is, I think, one of the mistakes people make, especially young people, because we tell them to be self reliant and all this and they go and tell you their ideas because they want to prove, but they haven't battle tested it. And then we shoot ideas and then they say, well, you don't provide psychological safety. That's our job, which is to push and push and push with love, with, with support. But at the same time we're holding them to high standards so they better bring good work to us. I don't expect them to come with me to come to me with right answers. I expect them to come to me with thoughtful answers. Got it. So, so Peter was one of the best leaders I ever had. And I don't think he ever answered a.
