The 60 Second Podcast
Big insights. One question. 60 seconds.
Hosted by TEDx speaker and 3X founder Matt McCoy, this podcast delivers fast, punchy interviews with the world’s top leaders — from billion-dollar CEOs to bold startup founders.
Each episode asks one powerful question to uncover the mindset, tactics, or story behind game-changing success — all in under a minute.
Perfect for ambitious listeners who want real answers, really fast.
The 60 Second Podcast
Nick Dean - President & Director, The Keg Steakhouse + Bar
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What does real leadership look like inside a company with thousands of employees?
In this episode of The 60 Second Podcast, Matt McCoy sits down with Nick Dean, President & Director of The Keg Steakhouse + Bar, to talk about empowerment, trust, and what it actually means to lead a high-performing organization.
Nick shares why great leaders act more like coaches than players, the importance of hiring “wild ducks” instead of carbon copies, and how trust can unlock the full potential of a team. From navigating uncertainty to building one of Canada’s top workplace cultures, this conversation is packed with practical leadership insights for founders, executives, and aspiring leaders alike.
00:00 – Matt McCoy
You describe yourself as an entrepreneurial and empowering leader. What does empowerment actually look like in practice inside a large organization?
00:09 – Nick Dean
Well, I think it comes down to this. As the president of a large organization, your role is actually a lot more like a coach than it is a player. So you may have once at some point in your career been a great player, but now your job is to sit on the bench and really assemble a team of subject matter experts and create an environment where they can be truly successful.
This comes back to a great story I heard from the founder of The Keg. He was interviewed and the reporter said to him, “You surround yourself with a really eclectic group of people.”
And George said, “Yeah, you’re right, I sure do. I don’t want to hire carbon copies, I hire wild ducks, and my job as the president is to let those wild ducks fly in formation.”
So I’ve always loved that because it’s sort of this idea that you can bring in people with all these different levels of expertise and skill, but your job as the president is to get them all to fly in a certain and specific direction.
I think also when it comes to empowerment, you’ve got to think about all the expertise that your team probably already has in the room. And you want to create the runway for them to be able to execute against that expertise.
Another recent example was we run a major promotion every summer, Lobster Summer at The Keg. And my head of procurement came to me in the spring and he said, “Nick, I’m not so sure about this. I think we might have some issues with supply.”
And my answer back to him was, “Look, you’re going to figure this out. I trust you. Go on and figure it out.”
He sort of took my comments as perhaps a bit flippant at the time, but the reality is I genuinely believed he would figure it out — and he did. And we had another great successful program.
So I think it’s about creating the environment, putting a lot of trust in your team, and really letting them do what they do best.
