What comes first in leadership: people or performance?

In this episode of The People Playbook, Jason Taylor sits down with Peter Kenyon, Vice President, Client Services at Entegra Canada, to unpack what it really takes to build strong teams, protect culture, and drive results that last.

Peter brings decades of cross-functional leadership experience across sales, operations, supply chain, and executive leadership roles in both public and private sector organizations. In this conversation, he shares practical lessons on building morale, creating accountability, coaching top performers, handling tough conversations, and leading with humility and integrity.

This episode is packed with real-world leadership wisdom for CEOs, executives, and emerging leaders who want to build high-achieving teams without losing the human side of leadership.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• Why morale drives sustainable performance
• The leadership power of listening and asking better questions
• What public vs. private sector leadership teaches about accountability
• How to build trust before tough conversations happen
• Why follow-up is one of the most overlooked leadership skills
• The biggest mistakes leaders make when scaling teams
• What young leaders need to understand early in their careers

If you care about building winning teams, clear cultures, and better leaders, this is a conversation worth hearing.

In this episode of The People Playbook Podcast, host Jason Taylor sits down with Drew Gillett, VP of Retail Marketing at Guild Mortgage. Drew leads a high-performance marketing team supporting thousands of loan officers in the highly regulated mortgage industry, where he focuses on building trust, driving culture, developing leaders at scale, and helping people show up with clarity and confidence.

Drew shares practical leadership insights drawn from years of scaling teams and influencing large organizations. Key topics include:

• Hiring for ownership mentality and emotional intelligence over pure results
• Balancing autonomy with accountability through clear ownership, dates, and communication
• Letting go of the "how" without lowering standards in fast-moving environments
• Diagnosing underperformance: clarity, capability, or care?
• The critical role of steady emotional mindset during high-tension moments
• Giving direct, timely feedback instead of delaying hard conversations
• Helping leaders build authentic personal brands with consistency (not constancy)
• Unlearning bottlenecks as you scale, coaching the next generation, and more

Whether you're leading teams, navigating rapid growth, or developing your own leadership style, Drew's emphasis on people-first decisions, curiosity, and high standards offers actionable plays to build stronger teams and better results.

In this episode of The People’s Playbook, Jason Taylor sits down with Sherry McNeil, CFE, President & CEO of the Canadian Franchise Association (CFA), to explore leadership, franchising, and the art of building resilient organizations. From her early days working at the store level to leading one of Canada’s largest franchise networks, Sherry shares the lessons, stories, and strategies that have shaped her career.

We dive into:

• How early hands-on experience informs leadership today
• The critical qualities for franchise leaders in an evolving market
• The role of culture in successful brand transformations
• Building stronger franchise relationships through collaboration and feedback

Whether you’re a franchisee, franchisor, or aspiring leader, Sherry’s insights offer actionable strategies and inspiration for leading with purpose, connecting with people, and driving growth.