Balancing Team Dynamics and Leadership, with Captain Kelly J. Gordon

In this podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Captain Kelly J. Gordon about balancing team dynamics and leadership. Captain Kelly J. Gordon is an accomplished motor yacht captain, public speaker, social media influencer, and the 2022 recipient of A Crew Yachting's Master 500-GT award. The former chemistry professor grew up on a farm in a small town in Indiana, where she developed the work ethic and drive that have made her successful. Her thirst for adventure has led her to become one of the busiest and most respected captains. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  Welcome to the HCI family of podcasts. We're your source for personal, professional, and organizational growth and development. We share our own original research, explore industry trends, and interview executives and thought leaders from across the globe. Join us for practitioner-oriented content around all things leadership, HR, talent management, organizational development, and change management. Maximize your personal and organizational potential with the HCI family of podcasts.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Captain Kelly J. Gordon, welcome to the conversation today.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Awesome. Thank you for having me here. So glad to be here.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  It is a real pleasure to be with you. You're joining us from Antigua. I'm south of Salt Lake City in Utah. And today, we're going to be talking about leadership, team dynamics, and we're going to do it from a little bit of a unique angle and perspective. You are a super yacht captain, and you're going to share all about unique challenges that you face in that kind of a setting and a context, and how it relates to other leadership experiences that you've had and that we see in organizations all the time. As we get started, I wanted to share Kelly's bio with everybody. Captain Kelly J. Gordon is an accomplished motor yacht captain, public speaker, social media influencer, and the

• 1:21Speaker 00

  2022 recipient of a Crew Yachting's Master 500 DT Award. The former chemistry professor grew up on a farm in a small town in Indiana where she developed the work ethic and drive that have made her successful. Her first, or excuse me, her thirst for adventure has led her to become one of the busiest and most respected captains. Love it. Love the background. Anything you'd like to highlight before we dive on in?

• 1:45Speaker 01

  No, I'm ready to roll.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  Okay, cool. Well, so why don't you set the stage for us a little bit, just in terms of yachting, and like how you got into this, and then we can start to kind of dig into your unique perspective.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Well, it's funny that you say you're up there in Salt Lake, you said Salt Lake City. It's a little bit chillier than where I am down here in the Caribbean in Antigua at the moment, but I'm actually from the Midwest originally, so. North central Indiana, so it's pretty, it's pretty chilly up there, too. Um, completely landlocked, so the fact that um, I'm now a super yacht captain is like so far from anything that I could have imagined growing up. And it was really totally by accident and coincidence that I became um, a yacht captain. And that was because I chose to go to grad school, so I went to undergrad in Indiana and then I went to grad school out in North Carolina.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  And really had no idea, just how close to the coast I was and then upon graduation, I still wanted to stay in academia, so I took a teaching job at a local college and a student of mine was really involved in, in the town and she saw that I was new to the town and she's like, I really would like to show you around. And I'm like, okay, after grades are turned in, that, that works for me. She was a non-traditional student, so she was a little bit older than me, so you know, the friendship worked and the first place that she took me to in what was this very integral seaside town to the yachting community that I had no idea of. The first thing she took me to was an event on a yacht. And literally, I'll never forget the moment that I stepped

• 3:22Speaker 01

  one foot on the back deck and I was like, okay, this is what I, this is what I want to do. And which is absolutely crazy because I didn't know bow from stern or port from starboard, like I, I knew nothing. But I said, this is what I want to do. And so fast forward almost 20 years later, here I am. So it's like, uh, you know, I chuckled to myself when you say you're, you know, you're up north in Salt Lake City and you know, I'm from the Midwest as well and it's just like, I'm so far from, you know, and I'm literally, I'm, I'm sitting in a hotel room at the Antigua Charter Show, looking out my window at some of the largest super yachts, mega yachts in the world and it's just literally as we have this conversation.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  And I'm imagining you sitting back in Salt Lake and where I come from. So it's just, it's crazy how, you know, the world turns.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  It is, you know, how we find ourselves where we find ourselves is always an interesting story in and of itself. It's always an interesting path and, and most people uh don't tend to take a direct route. We tend to zigzag a little bit to kind of get where we're going. Um, I, I always say, you know, that's certainly the case for me. I always say though, the, the exception, and I don't know many people like this, but someone like my wife who knew from high school that she wanted to teach math and she, and that's what she's done her whole career. Um, you know, that's super rare. Most people don't like to figure things out that quickly. And you have to like kind of meander and, and figure out uh what you want to do and what you're good at and where, where your passions lie.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  Um, and that's really cool that uh that you found uh your passion, that you've been able to live it uh all this time.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  But you know what? I was one of those people like your wife where I knew from the time that I was six years old, little bitty, what I wanted to do. And it was to be a veterinarian. And um I actually got into veterinary school right out of undergrad and dropped out um for a lot of just, a lot of reasons. I was young. I was 22. My boyfriend and I had broken up. I was just kind of struggling on the mental health aspect of it. And I just, I was scared to death of it. Couldn't totally afford veterinary school. So it's like to go from being one of those people that knew my whole entire life, what I wanted to be like, and the little town that I grew up in.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Like even had planned for me to take over the local veterinary clinic when, you know, the veterinarian that had been there for years and years. So, so then I, you know, do a complete, you know, 180, like more than a 180 because y- y- yachting is so far from veterinary medicine, which is so far from, you know, the chemistry degree that I wound up getting. So it's um, it's crazy how you get where you get.

• 6:11Speaker 00

  It is. Well, well, very cool. I also have to say, I I personally have no experience on super yachts or mega yachts. But we were, I was in Venice with my wife and my oldest, or my middle two daughters this last summer. And we're, you know, we're just there in the square area in Venice, for anyone who's been there. And and you can look out and and you can see, you know, there's the there's people in little boats and moving around and everything. And then there's like this giant mega yacht. And I think it was it was really only a few weeks before the big Bezos thing in in in Venice that caught all the attention, you know, for his wedding. But there's this other huge mega yacht. And it was our turn to go

• 6:51Speaker 00

  out on a little on a little boat to get a little tour. And we're asking the the guide, you know, about it. And they didn't know a lot, but we were able to look up the yacht, and we were able to look up the owner and and all of that. And I'm just like, oh, this is a different world, isn't it? Like, the size of this thing. And for and for this particular super yacht, it was it was the smaller of the two that this billionaire guy owned. You know,

• 7:18Speaker 01

  And I'm sure small was huge.

• 7:19Speaker 00

  It's it's a it's a different world, you know, and I don't I don't like navigate that world. But that's really cool, that I bet you have so many stories and so many different things to share about about captaining,

• 7:31Speaker 01

  So many.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  like that, yeah.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And it's, yeah, it's it is absolutely a different world, you know, and and you talk about, you know, leadership and what life is like on board. And, you know, I say that imagine, well, first of all, the yacht itself is like a floating city on water, you know, so it's like you you take this thing that is a living, breathing, it's almost like taking your house and plopping it into saltwater and plugging it into an extension cord and expecting it to run flawlessly. So you you know, right there,

• 8:07Speaker 00

  And you're saying it doesn't usually work that way?

• 8:10Speaker 01

  It does not. It does not. You put the you put the boat to bed at night, and then you come back the next morning, and you're like, stuff is broken. How did this how did this happen? Like, we didn't even go anywhere, you know? Um, so yeah, and then, you know, being, being, if you think about it, um, you know, right? Like right now, we're a crew of, I have, um, a total of fourteen and you live together, work together, play together, eat together, share a room together. Like you are, it's not a nine to five, you know, where if you have a coworker that you don't really care for, you don't really like, you know, at least you know, at the end of the day, five o'clock comes, the bell dings, you get to go home and you get some sort of a reprieve. In this industry, there's a really good chance that if

• 8:52Speaker 01

  there's somebody on your crew that you're not getting along with, they might actually be your roommate. And your room is, I mean, this thing is usually so small that like the both of you can't stand up and get dressed at the same time. Like, so you're, you know, there's so much going on in terms of, and then, you know, it's not like you're, you're working in, in a, a corporate situation and where probably most of you are all very similar in upbringing and nationality, you know, like on my boat, what is it, we're, we're American, Russian, Venezuelan, Cuban, Bahamian, Brazilian. So you put, you put all of those different personalities, all those different backgrounds, all those different

• 9:35Speaker 01

  upbringings, and I say it's like putting us in a pressure cooker. And so it's a, it's a lot of work to get that to run smoothly.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, interesting. And in any kind of, let's just use a typical corporate environment. You were kind of referring to that as a juxtaposition, but in any kind of typical organizational setting, having a successful team is already hard to do, um, for a variety of reasons. People have different backgrounds, as you said, people, you know, have different mindsets, people have different skillsets. And, and it's, it's one of the real, um, skills of a really great leader when they can navigate and facilitate a team of people with all these different, all these differences, uh, to, to work together, uh, to accomplish something greater, you know, than individual parts. Um, and it's hard, that's, that's hard to do in a, in a kind of a traditional setting. Like you said, where you, you, you have maybe an office, you have, uh, you have time off

• 10:31Speaker 00

  on the weekends and, and at nights. Um, you, if, if there's someone you just can't stand, you can get away from them, um, for a bit.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  You go home at the end of the day. You know, you know that you only have to hang in there until five o'clock. Here, that's not the case.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  When five o'clock comes, then you go down to have dinner with them and then you go to bed with them and it's, yeah.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, and so I'm, you know, I'm, I'm wondering, you know, what it's been like um kind of learning to navigate that unique context for fostering, you know, healthy team dynamics. Uh, because what you're describing is quite a bit different than I think what most people probably have ever experienced themselves. Um, and I, I figure if you can learn how to, how to have a really great, dynamic, cooperative, supportive team in that kind of a pressure cooker situation, then you probably can do it just about anywhere, I would suspect.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Well, thank you for saying that. And, you know, it was, I, I actually just got a message from, from the boss man the other day, the boat owner. And um, we've got multiple boats and he said, he said, thanks Kelly, you're really good at putting good teams together. And like, just that, that one sentence text message that I got from him, I just hung on to for so long and I put the biggest smile on my face. And, you know, we, I have a lot of conversations about it because leadership is just something that like, I, I, I just love, like, I grew up loving the way, learning the way people think, why do they react this way? Why do they respond that way? What makes them feel this way? It's just something that I was naturally inquisitive about from like third grade. I remember asking

• 12:07Speaker 01

  in third grade at Christmas for my first interpersonal communications book, just because I was so interested in, in the mind. And I think that in itself is my natural inquisitiveness is what has helped me be a good leader. You know, I'm certainly not the best out there and I certainly got a lot learned, more to learn. But I think, you know, when I look at, at my crew and the dynamics and the fact that I've had some of my crew that have been with me for years and go from boat to boat to boat with me. Um, it's, it's, I think the trick.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  At least this is what has worked for me is to be authentic and to be genuine. And I am, I'm a hundred percent myself every day, all day. So if, if I'm happy, you know it. If I'm sad, you know it. If I'm frustrated, if I'm stressing. And I am just, I am very unapologetically myself all of the time. And I think allowing them to see me, who's supposed to be the captain of this big boat, who's supposed to be the leader, who's supposed to have it all figured out. Um, I think for them to see me be a real human and for me to let them know, maybe when I'm having a tough time.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Or even when, you know, maybe there's a recent achievement come along and I'm celebrating it, or I need their help. So just letting them see that I'm human too, has really allowed for a closeness with each and every one of them. Very different closenesses with, with each of them, because they're all individuals. Um, I think that's why, I think that's the trick. I think that's the ticket. Is it, and I say this, I say it's the simplest, hardest thing to do, to be authentic, to be your real self. Is so simple, but it's so hard because I don't think a lot of people, um.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Maybe not a lot, but you definitely have to put the time in to become confident, to become comfortable within yourself. To have that emotional IQ and I've put, I could geek out on leadership. I love to read about it. I love to watch videos about it. I love to try new things. You know, and even tell my crew, well, I tried that and that didn't go over very well. That didn't work. You know, or I'll tell them, oh guys, I messed that one up. And they'll be like, that's all right, Cap, you'll get it next time. Um.

• 14:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, people, people tend to be pretty, pretty willing to be patient and forgiving when they see the person in front of them is vulnerable and authentic and is trying, right? Um, and I think that's, that's why it is so hard, you know, I think you're absolutely right. Well, everything you just said is not rocket science. It's not like, I mean, it's been said a million times, there's millions of books and videos. Uh, you're like, people talk about it all the time. And, and I think conceptually, most people, most people who are leaders know exactly what you just said. The problem is, it's really hard to live. It's really hard to do, um, because you have to, you have to be intentional. You have to be, um, vulnerable and that's scary.

• 15:18Speaker 00

  Um, and, and there's, you know, we have all these built up, um, kind of pictures of, of a good leader in our heads. And most of those and how they've been portrayed in media and, you know, we grow up thinking about this strong stoic leader who always has it figured out, who knows what to do, who people can lean on. And, and yes, there's a time and a place to provide stability, right? But there's also a time and a place where, you know, you don't know everything. You, you don't have all the expertise. You have people on your crew that have very specific expertise in all these different areas. And you lean on them and rely on them. And you don't need to try to pretend like you know everything. Um, and in fact, when you do, it usually just erodes trust and it usually just makes people feel micromanaged.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  And so, um, having, having like the self-confidence and the maturity in this, the, the internal kind of stability, uh, to be able to then foster that kind of authentic vulnerability. Um, I think it's, it's real.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  It takes a lot of work though.

• 16:14Speaker 00

  It takes a lot of work and it's a superpower that, that people can develop. I, uh, I really do believe it, but it takes a lot of time and effort and self-reflection and like all that kind of stuff. And it doesn't just happen overnight, um, for, for folks. But when you figure that out.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  I spent years in therapy. I like, you know, I told you, I dropped out of veterinary school, which was my lifelong dream. And I, I realized at one point when, you know, I, I didn't want to be upright on this side of the planet anymore. I was like, okay, you, you gotta do some work and I dug in. I mean, deep and went to therapy and read books and did workshops and did self-help. And like I, I did a lot of work and I still do the, I still do the work in a, in a different way now. In the form of studying, like I said, I'm always reading something, always watching something and just what I'll learn from talking to you is, is just so much.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  And um, it's, it's, it's a lot of work though. And I will say that, you know, I, I say I do a lot of speaking around the world and people talk about it and I say, you know, I said 10% of my job is driving the boat. The other 90% is peopling and I'm like, I people all day long and peopling is when you really care is a lot harder than driving a $30 million boat.

• 17:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And, and to tie this into probably the types of leadership experiences that most in the audience have had. You know, I would, I would actually say the same thing. So being a supervisor, manager, leader in just about any context. It's more about peopling. It's more about the team. It's more about the dynamics. It's more about the culture you, you and the, the example you set and the culture you build. Um, and all of that is the people stuff. So regardless of, you know, kind of the technical area you might be in with your team. In your case, you know, it's a mega yacht and, and it's like this floating city and all these specific areas of specialty. Everyone though, has kind of their own specific areas of specialty and on their teams that they're managing.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  And to help steer the ship of the organization and to help, you know, provide value and blah, blah, blah, like all of that. I think every team has some of those dynamics. And I think the leaders, despite whatever good intentions they may have, I think the, the leaders who struggle are the ones that don't understand the people side of what they do is pretty much what they do. Like once, once you're in that role, you're no longer the, the individual contributor. You're no longer the specialist or the subject matter expert in that thing. You, you can still bring some of that, of course, to what you do with the team, but. Like now you have other people to do that for you. So now it's all about finessing the dynamic, creating the culture, building trust and sustaining trust.

• 19:06Speaker 00

  Um, and, and the things you mentioned about empathy and, and vulnerability and, and, and sharing and your, your genuine authentic self with others around you. That, that is the emotional energy that goes into leadership. And we've all had bad leaders and usually badly, I mean, sometimes bad leaders don't have technical or competency either, but typically like the biggest problem with bad leaders is not that they lack technical skill and competency. It's usually that they lack the people stuff, right? Um, and, and then

• 19:36Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I mean, it, it's, I just, it's just a really important point. I want to reiterate, you know, because what you said within the yachting environment and captaining a ship, you know, I think, I think that applies to just about everyone in any kind of leadership environment they might find themselves, um, that it's about the people. And if, if you find yourself, you know, focusing on all the technical aspects of it, chances are you're probably micromanaging more than you, you know, you should. And, and, and you need to, you need to learn to rely on and power and trust your team. And then you need to finesse and facilitate that dynamic that you want.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Well, a couple of things, um, I'll, I'll never forget this very specifically. And when I had a, a young crew member that had risen to the chief stew position just kind of by out of default, because I didn't have anybody else. She was next in line. And, um, I remember one day very specifically, I was going to bring on a second stew that had tons of experience and I was so excited and I was like, oh my God, you're going to love her. I'm like, she's got a lot of experience. Well, that very much intimidated her. And, and she said to me, I want to be the smartest person in the room. And I said, no, you don't ever want to be the smartest person in the room. And I said, if I'm ever the smartest person in the room, I want out of that room.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, you you don't grow. And I said, you know, and and that goes with everybody on the boat. You know, my engineer, he's got a very, you know, technical level of expertise. I, you know, he could take the engines apart and put them back together again, you know, I couldn't. And, you know, you know, the ladies that run the interior and the level of service and their knowledge of textiles and in liquors and wines is is just out of this world. And the guy is outside on the deck and everything that they know, like, I go to them and say, hey, what do you think about this? Hey, what do you think about that? You know, and I was mentoring a young captain the other day.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  And, you know, I said, you know, look, you've got your deck, you've got your, you know, you got exterior, you got interior, you got your engineer. And he goes, well, what am I here for then? And I said, you're here to make sure they have what they need to do their job.

• 21:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  And I don't think he understood that at his level, it's it's not to do their job for them. You know, and I found that he kind of kept getting enmeshed a little too much in what the engineer was doing and and what the girls were doing, you know, inside with the liquors and the wines. And I'm like, you have to step back and you have to let them do the job. I said, because their specialty is that, is what they were hired for. Your specialty is the very small portion of your technical aspect is is weather and navigation and boat handling. I said, the rest of your job, which is such a small portion, the rest of your job is to lead.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  And to lead is to make sure that they have everything that they knew they need physically, emotionally, intellectually to do the job like, and I think a lot of leaders don't. They want to do like you're saying, that micromanaging and they don't, they don't want to ask the questions. And they don't realize really what their job is, is to hire people smarter than them. And

• 22:56Speaker 00

  Amen to that. Yeah. And and it doesn't necessarily come from a bad place. And that's something I do want to reiterate is, you know,

• 23:03Speaker 01

  It doesn't.

• 23:04Speaker 00

  Like, there are, there are jerk Bosses who are just jerks and and they they are controlling and they're a pain to be around. But I think the vast majority of people who kind of get sucked into kind of the micromanaging aspect. I think it usually comes from a place of they want to help, they want to be supportive. And they don't realize what they're actually doing is undermining their people. And they're actually taking away autonomy and they're actually eroding trust and they're actually making things harder. Um, I think the intention is probably good, but but they're sabotaging themselves when they do that. And so, you know, we can give grace to folks who are learning how to how to to.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  How to lead.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  How to be, how to micromanage less, how to empower more. Um, so we definitely should be patient and give grace to folks to do that. But for anyone in the audience, like that's our, that's one of our jobs as leaders is to like, learn that skill, like learn how to figure that out. So we can balance the supportive aspect of being a leader um with the autonomy side of being a leader. You don't want to under manage, but you don't want to over manage and that's, it can be a fine line.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  It's a fine line. It's a dance. It's a dance. It's a fine line every day, all day. And then I look back and I reflect and I'm like, well, maybe I should have offered more support there or maybe it was too much there. But I'm always thinking, always thinking about it, you know, and and I agree with you, you have to. I don't think, yeah, there's jerk bosses, but you know, somebody that maybe isn't getting it quite right, isn't doing this maliciously. And and I use this, you know, when I'm, when I'm talking, especially to the industry and to other captains. And I say, you know, ninety percent of our training only pertains to ten percent of our job. So we, we spend years training, taking courses on weather, navigation, boat handling, that kind of thing.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  And if I say ten percent of our training is on leadership, that's probably even a stretch. So little of our training is on leadership. And and honestly, we take one five day course that's supposed to be on the human element and leadership. And we're supposed to be leaders. So I give grace and I, but this isn't just in the yachting industry. This is and you think of other, you know, CEOs and president of this and vice president of that or or, you know, general manager. They, they get to those positions because they're good at their craft.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  So they rise to the top, being good at their craft and nobody, and and then the leadership is just something that. Leading a team comes along by default, but nobody ever teaches them how how to lead. And so I I I I give grace to them like you're saying. And but that's also, you know, when I when I talk about this, I'm like, even if your industry doesn't provide formal leadership training, I'm like, take it upon yourself. That's why I'm always, you know, even if it's even if I spend five minutes a day reading an article or Googling a topic on maybe something particular that's going on within in the team and for suggestions on how to handle it, or why maybe did someone take it this way?

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Or gosh, for me, you know, I've got, what did I say? Five or six different nationalities on my boat, trying to um teach myself about the different cultures so that I can understand them a little bit better. There's um, there's really so much, I mean, with the internet and with books, and we're in an information age where you can learn really about anything.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, go to YouTube University and continue to learn. Well, Kelly, this has just been a fantastic conversation. Uh, I know at the time I need to let you go and get on with your busy day. But before we wrap things up, I wanted to give you a chance to share with the audience how they can connect with you, find out more about your work, and then give us the final word for today.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Oh, that's awesome. Thank you so much. Well, if you want to find me, you can find me on all socials, but probably the easiest way to get to me is to go to my website, which is CaptainKellyDGordon.com. And there you can find all of my my LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, all of the different ways, and even email me from there. And um, you know, if I was just to leave you with one bit of last insight, it would just be, just be you, be unapologetically you, and lead and be with authenticity. And I think that that will go so far.

• 27:25Speaker 00

  I agree. Amen. I I think that will get you a long, long way uh into finding success in whatever leadership role you find yourself. Kelly, it has been a real pleasure. I encourage the audience to reach out, to get connected, find out more about what Kelly can do for you. And as always, I hope everyone can stay healthy and safe. And you can find meaning and purpose at work each and every day. And I hope you all have a great week.

• 27:49Speaker 00

  Thanks for joining us for this episode of the podcast. We hope you stay healthy and safe, and please join us again soon.