Use these Leadership Tips to Run a Successful Restaurant

Hey there restaurant pros. It’s David Scott Peters and welcome to episode 103. From season one of the restaurant prosperity formula, I think coaching restaurant owner since 2003, and the restaurant prosperity formula is based on what the most successful restaurant owners I’ve worked with doing a daily basis to achieve their success. The basic premise of the formula centers around achieving prosperity, freedom of your restaurant and financial freedom you deserve to achieve prosperity you have to follow a very specific formula made up of leadership systems training, accountability and taking action.
The next two episodes are going to be a compilation of a few of the best clips from the last 100 episodes in areas such as food cost systems leadership and labor. Costs.
Today’s episode is all about the importance of leadership in the restaurant industry. We’ll explore why leaders matter and the critical role growth mindset plays in developing your leadership skills. You’ll learn that anyone can grow into being a leader, given the right mindset and tools. We’ll also discuss specific behaviors and attitudes that kill effective leadership. Finally, I’ll share four action steps to increase your management team responsibilities allowing you to lead your restaurant rather than merely running it. Whether you’re new to my podcast or our longtime listener, this is an episode you will not want to miss.
Let’s get started. But first, a word from our sponsor. We all know managing costs is one of the most important parts of running a profitable restaurant especially now, but between fluctuating vendor prices, waste labor, and the never ending list of tasks that demand your attention on a daily basis. It can be challenging for even the most experienced of us to manage costs well. That’s where margin edge comes in. Margin edge is a complete restaurant management software that automatically uses data from your POS and invoices to show you food and labor costs in real time. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Margin edge gives you tools to make decisions in the moment, like a daily p&l price alerts on key ingredients and real time plate costs. All without ever having to touch a spreadsheet. Take control of your costs work more efficiently and be more profitable. Go to www dot Marjan edge.com Ford slash DSP to learn more and schedule your demo today.
Now we’re going to focus on the importance of being a good leader today. And to do that, I want to start by telling you a story. In the old days before video became the norm everything I did was basically creating CDs, CDs that I would mail out and they were from recorded phone calls or interviews. And I put them through a duplicator and then I put them in with clam shells and we put them in an envelope, put a stamp on it and mail it to my members. Like this is what it was like 20 years ago. Now this required a very specific piece of equipment to get it done because I worked like say NPR radio, right? If you ever listen to them and they do the the interviews, the studio person sounds perfect. Yet the caller stands down near perfect. Same same volume level and so on. Well, there’s a very specific piece of equipment that allows you to take a microphone like this and tie it in with a telephone and get everybody in just in one shot at the same level sounding great. Well, came a time where technology changed, and video became king. I no longer needed this specialized piece of equipment. So I put it up on Craigslist.
To move on to the story here.
The buyer was actually a restaurant owner slash general manager of chick Blanc. If you’re familiar, the GMs our owners are like 10% owner so owner and general manager but typically, you know, one of the most successful fast food franchises there are out there. Maybe I shouldn’t say franchise because they have owners, right.
But when this guy came to my office, and he realized he walked into the office and saw what we did, and we started talking, we talked about, you know what he did what I did, and next thing you know, he asked me a question. We’re outside and you know, taking the piece of equipment to his to his car.
And he says, Hey, David, based on what you do now, what do you think is a restaurants greatest challenge to success? Like rephrase it?
What’s the number one reason why restaurants fail? Right?
Why do you think about it for a second? And then I said, Well, if you asked me this question, when I first started my coaching business back in 2003, I would have told you most restaurants fail before they even open because they’re undercapitalized. And the secondary thing was people were over couponing. They were couponing the restaurants to death. Now, I said if you asked me five years later, I would have talked about food costs and poor costs and labor costs being the killers.
But today, I’d answer that question completely different based on the years of working with independent restaurant owners. The years of coaching I’ve literally at that point time had coached 1000s of restaurant owners and their managers.
I said today, I would answer that question with the answer of lack of leadership.
That’s right. You heard me remember, there’s a reason why if I pull out of the story right now, the reason why put leadership is number one. To be successful, you must become the leader your restaurant needs, doesn’t matter if you have systems if you don’t lead people to the system. Doesn’t matter if you learn everyday if you don’t share if you don’t lead people with that information. Doesn’t matter. If you’ve got systems and you learn if you don’t hold people accountable. It doesn’t matter if you have all that data and you don’t lead somebody to taking action. They see leadership is probably the number one thing that a restaurant owner separates themselves from all the other restaurants out there and why they’re successful.
Why leadership? Why leadership? I just went through it right.
How did I come to this conclusion? What changed in me over the years that I kept changing what I saw as the reason why restaurants fail, or again, repurposing that into what makes them succeed? The short answer is that nothing changed. But through my years of experience, coaching calls, seminars, workshops, speeches, consulting, mastermind meetings, and much more. I’ve worked with literally 1000s of restaurant owners and their managers. And it just became apparent to me now to a person while the restaurant owners who joined my coaching program are looking to improve their lives. And their operations. They face the same challenges as the restaurant owner with a fixed mindset.
The difference is, you’re driving their business and their lives with a growth mindset. So they don’t look at these challenges as something that should stop them. dead in their tracks instead, their opportunities see I look at failure as an opportunity to grow. Yeah, I made that mistake you have that cost me money, but I cannot learn it. I cannot think it.
They think themselves I can learn to do anything I want. So they’re always out with seminars, workshops, reading trade publications, listening to books, online reading books, right? They’re going to coaching programs. They’re doing whatever they can because they understand they don’t want they don’t know what they don’t know. So they’re always looking to become better.
These owners with a growth mindset, say challenges helped me grow. See, that challenge drives me to find a solution to find the information to find the money to find a way to become better.
These owners say my effort and my attitude determined my abilities. See it’s not outside factors. That limited me because there’s always going to be challenges the restaurant industry, the business itself is probably a tough business. I know there will always be challenges. We’re going to replace one challenge with a new challenge, but they understand they put the effort and come at it with a positive mental attitude. They can overcome anything.
And lastly, restaurant owners with a growth mindset said
I’m inspired by the success of others. See, they don’t look at people and get jealous and say, Oh, they only got there because of this, this this this. They don’t think oh, I should be that one. Instead they go man, that is awesome. What did they do? What can I steal from what they’ve done? And do it myself to have the same success. They want to prop people up instead of tear them down. restaurant owners with a growth mindset see the world so differently? See, seeing challenges that their opportunity to become better. They understand. They don’t know what they don’t know and need to learn more and ultimately, they’re not afraid to take action.
Leadership isn’t just a buzzword. It’s a driving force behind every successful restaurant. A strong leader sets the tone creates the culture and most importantly guides the team towards prosperity.
But what does it look like in the day to day operations of a restaurant? Let’s break it down into the essential qualities a great leader must have in the restaurant industry.
One vision a leader has clear vision for the restaurants future This means not just thinking about tonight’s rush, but where do you see your restaurant in a year, maybe even five from now.
Number two communication. Effective communication is key. This involves clearly conveying your vision to your team, listening to their feedback and making sure everyone is on the same page.
Three is empathy. Understanding that needs and concerns of your team is critical. This means recognizing when your staff is overwhelmed and need support, or when customers have concerns that need to be addressed.
Number four accountability. A leader holds themselves and their team accountable. This involves setting clear expectations tracking performance, and providing constructive feedback.
And five decision making quick and effective decision making can make or break a busy service. Whether it’s dealing with a customer complaint or a supply shortage a leader needs to make decisions that are in the best interest of the restaurant.
Let’s talk about Joe, a restaurant owner who transformed his struggling business into a local hotspot. The secret exceptional leadership that focused on team development, customer satisfaction and financial management. Joel implemented weekly staff meetings, customer feedback sessions and a transparent financial tracking system.
Training is another area where leadership shines. A leader ensures that every team member will be well trained from the kitchen to Front of House. Joe invested in comprehensive training program that included role playing customer service scenarios and food safety certifications.
Accountability is the glue that holds everything together. A true leader tracks performance rewards excellence and addresses issues promptly Joe introduced a performance bonus system that saw a 50% increase in staff productivity.
So you ready to step up your leadership game? Start by assessing your current leadership skills and take action to improve. It’s critical for you to become the leader your restaurant needs. There are certain leadership killers that you must avoid and I’m going to go through them right now.
Leadership killers lack of confidence. The most common example of lack of confidence that I see over and over again, is restaurant owners say to me that they don’t know their numbers. I don’t know what that means. Why do you know what that means? But you got to understand to lead. You must be confident as a person. You must feel good about yourself. You need to feel like you’re this you’re smart enough to figure things out, even if you don’t know how to do something. Which means again leads us right into that the next pillar because if you say hey, I don’t know my numbers and you will ignore things like I don’t even look at my p&l because I don’t know them. For me it was often I don’t know the kitchen so I’d ignore it and we’d get dirty or presentation plate presentation wouldn’t be to our part up to our snuff, if you will. Because if you don’t know if you’re not confident maybe it just goes away. But it leads into the next piece and that’s lack of knowledge. A killer of leadership is lack of knowledge as a restaurant owner if you think you know everything there is to know about running a restaurant making money, then you’re doomed.
lack of confidence. The most common example of lack of confidence that I see over and over again, is restaurant owners say to me that they don’t know their numbers. I don’t know what that means. Why do you know what that means? But you got to understand to lead. You must be confident as a person. You must feel good about yourself. You need to feel like you’re this you’re smart enough to figure things out, even if you don’t know how to do something. Which means again leads us right into that the next pillar because if you say hey, I don’t know my numbers and you will ignore things like I don’t even look at my p&l because I don’t know them. For me it was often I don’t know the kitchen so I’d ignore it and we’d get dirty or presentation plate presentation wouldn’t be to our part up to our snuff, if you will. Because if you don’t know if you’re not confident maybe it just goes away.
But it leads into the next piece and that’s lack of knowledge. A killer of leadership is lack of knowledge as a restaurant owner if you think you know everything there is to know about running a restaurant making money, then you’re doomed.
Think about it. If you’re the smartest person in the room, if you know everything, nobody can help you. You’ll find yourself in a fixed mindset because now you’re blaming everybody else in the world because you know better see to lead. You need to grow and learn new ways of doing things. You must admit to yourself that you don’t know what you don’t know. You need to seek out help when you need it. You need to be consistently on a quest of learning, because that’s what great leaders do and leadership killers fear of making decisions like combined lack of confidence with lack of knowledge, and what do you get a fearful decision maker? Right if you if you’re not confident what you do if you don’t know what to do because you don’t know enough information to come up with a conclusion, then you’re always teetering on man. If I make this decision. It could go wrong. You know when it could go wrong. It could go wrong. But more confidence with more knowledge. When you make decisions they become better decisions does not mean you’re not going to have a failure.
Failures are opportunities to learn. See, often fearful decision makers will avoid making any decision at all for fear that well it’s gonna be a bad decision, especially when they’re hard and they get pushed back to their managers or other team members. It’s like oh, I tried David. I tried to put this stuff in place but people say it’s so hard I don’t know what that means. See the lead. You must be able to make decisions.
You will make mistakes. But the benefit of good decisions far outweighs the bad ones. I really want you to think about that. How about lack of passion? That’s the leadership killer. Too many restaurant owners are in the business for the wrong reasons. My favorite reason is I’m gonna retire and open a restaurant. That is not a reason to open a restaurant. Retire, right think about it. They entered the toughest industry, the toughest industry, this toughest business that I know without passion it becomes a job, and you might as well be doing something else, otherwise the business will take you down, passionate, is critical. Remember my book. Well there are two personality traits that restaurant owners, all the restaurant owners that were base. the whole book was modeled against the most successful people I’ve ever worked with. They all have these two personality traits in common. And you know what they were passion for the restaurant industry for hospitality and persistence. Their critical personality traits that you’ve got to dig into to be a great leader, another leadership killer, or negative attitudes or negative thoughts. Now negative attitudes can show themselves as somebody who has a fixed mindset that you know the world is out to get you. But negative thoughts are really easy. In times of stress, man, you can revert back to that that preteen kid going through tough times. And that record player of negative thoughts can play themselves over and over again and take you down doesn’t matter what, what age you are. I often see restaurant owners who well if a bleak outlook in life, there’s this and everything in general. Again, that’s the fixed mindset person. The negative thoughts can destroy hope and create a bleak reality. Because once you grab onto that negative thought it spirals in. It grabs attention and grabs friends more negative thoughts, right they get together. Next thing you know, you’ve got a gaggle of negative thoughts that are just pulling you down. Because that’s all you can think about.
You’ve got to be a positive thinker to be a great leader.
Lack of vision is a really big leadership killer.
The restaurant business can be all crisis management day to day. That’s when you’re killing the closest snake to you right here comes a priority of a machete just take off the head. You cannot see how many snakes are out in front of you. You can’t see a path through all these snakes think about Indiana Jones right he’s back. He’s got a new movie out.
I have not seen it. But remember he’s afraid of snakes and he dropped into a pit when I was a kid. I can remember that movie well and chop chop, chop, just trying to get his way out.
Right It makes us feel like all we’re doing is putting out fires. We walk in a restaurant. There’s a little fires called the fires or crises. And then all we’re doing is we’re just walking the circle and we accomplish nothing in the restaurant because we’re just taking care of the closest crisis.
This happens because the restaurant has well, a lack of direction and managers and team members who just open and close the restaurant just to keep the money safe to keep the lights on to keep people happy, if you will. There’s no real joy in that. To lead. You have to have a greater vision for what successful looks like what it looks like for you. It’s important that you share your vision and your why we each and every one of your team members, with your customers, with your vendors with anybody who will listen because as a leader you have to get everybody to buy into your vision. They’ve got to buy into the why you open your restaurant and why you do these things. Why you implement new systems, why you make change how it’s going to benefit the guests how it’s going to benefit your employees. How it’s going to benefit you and your employees. leaders share that. Don’t think that I’ve shared it once and everybody should know they don’t know they need to be reminded on a daily basis. And this is why you got in the business. This is where the fire the spark that got you to do it in the first place you need to fire that back up.
Another leadership killer is poor communication and this is big.
If you can’t express your desire your visions, your expectations, your why everyone around you will fail.
If you’re lucky, maybe one person can reach your mind poor communication also rears its ugly head through misunderstandings which start to become a cancer in your business. And as the builds resent the resentment that everybody around you and including yourself because all you’re doing is correcting mistakes and well incorrect behaviors to lead first make sure well, you’re clear on what you want done how will you want it done by when? Right what the job is how to do it how well it should be done. More importantly by when How many times have you heard me say that?
See when it comes to tasks and job duties.
You You’ve got to make sure people are getting things done. That’s why we have systems things like manager logs to communicate. Get your managers to chase you with information, the information that’s important to you on a daily basis, but more importantly, you’re getting them to pay attention to things you want done.
You’ve got weekly manager meetings to keep everybody on the same page. what we wanted to do last week, what we hear missed and goals and what we’re going to do this week that we’re all moving forward.
We’re using software packages like Asana or Monday that allow you to project manage to put everybody up there and all the tasks that need to be done, who’s going to be responsible for when. the due date is that all communication is there and attachments and all are all there that everybody at anytime you can communicate with them. What you want done.
Another leadership killers lack of self discipline often as entrepreneurs, were starters we’re not finishers. I joke about being ADHD restaurant or restaurant owners. Well I can tell you that I am probably not undiagnosed ADHD why because my daughter got diagnosed and she said dad, you know it’s hereditary. With that said one of those symptoms can be or byproducts is start lots of lots of things but then squirrel squirrel squirrel chased the new shiny object and you’re off and you don’t finish what you started. It’s so apparent when you you know you come home from one of my workshops or a seminar that you’ve attended with me and your staff says oh no. What’s the next new thing that the restaurant or just learned is gonna make us do now and then they’re continually pushing back until you Cavan know you understand? Oh, yeah, David’s probably smart guy, but we’re different.
often as entrepreneurs, were starters we’re not finishers. I joke about being ADHD restaurant or restaurant owners. Well I can tell you that I am probably not undiagnosed ADHD why because my daughter got diagnosed and she said dad, you know it’s hereditary. With that said one of those symptoms can be or byproducts is start lots of lots of things but then squirrel squirrel squirrel chased the new shiny object and you’re off and you don’t finish what you started.
It’s so apparent when you you know you come home from one of my workshops or a seminar that you’ve attended with me and your staff says oh no. What’s the next new thing that the restaurant or just learned is gonna make us do now and then they’re continually pushing back until you Cavan know you understand? Oh, yeah, David’s probably smart guy, but we’re different.
It’s people in product, how are you different?
So all of a sudden you cave in, and all the things that you want to do all the things that you started to put in place to make change for your business, to make sure that you had a life that the restaurants successful providing guests a great experience your employees have jobs and make good money, right you understand all those things that the intentions you had behind your why? You’re going to make the change. It all goes away. Just as fast as you start to put in place it’s gone. Or you decide you’re going to do it all yourself. You’re gonna do all the things you came to my seminar that you learned and you’re gonna you’re gonna put it in your all into place yourself and quickly, you become overwhelmed and go back to the old ways to lead you have to not only stick to your guns, like when you get that push back, right? No, no, no, we’re different. And I would rather run short staff that have the wrong people, my team so if you’re gonna keep fighting the change, you may not fit my company culture. But here I’m going to tell you you have to stick you have to stick to these changes. Even at especially when the tasks are hard to do, or better yet uncomfortable.
You must have self discipline to come to work every day to ensure that change is happening. The changes that you know are well important to you in the business to lead the business forward to be the leader your restaurant needs.
You must be persistent.
That nothing and no one can stop you. A leader stays the course.
So here’s the hard truth. Just because you own a restaurant. It doesn’t make you a great leader. And to be successful in the restaurant business. You must become the leader your restaurant needs. How many times you’ve heard me say that.
A great leader. Well, they’re not often born. Like how often do you run across somebody who’s a born leader? Like when somebody is a born leader? It’s like people are like wow, that person is a born leader. But here I’m going to tell you this. A great leader can learn the skills to be great. See, you may not come to us naturally. But this is where systems come in. When you put systems in place they make up for your leadership weaknesses, shame this fear around to some competence, competence in running my business, leading my team, being the leader, my restaurant me Well, it starts with systems remember, I’m the systems guys System System systems. It’s your system, your process your way. That means we’ve got to document we’ve got to put together our systems how we count our barn door to $300 One way your way, how we want to open and close the restaurant. opening closing side work checklist by position your way. Analyzing dollars labor or work your way placing an order on budget your way having a budget and operating to it your way creating your plan for success your way you get it.
See there’s a system a process a way to doing anything and everything in your business. But you’ve got to make sure you define it. It’s common sense it can’t be follow that person. You’ve got to have your systems your process your way.
Next is great training. So then you got a system. You got your process your way but if nobody knows how to do it how the hell is it gonna be done? And I will tell you training is not showing somebody once and saying oh, I told them I can’t believe they can’t do it. Training is ensuring they can do it on their own. Now in my group, restaurant transformation intensive, my group of restaurant owners that are trying to change their lives, or in there with their implementers we spend the time almost every week talking about how they’ve got to make sure they train their management team on their systems, whether it’s the systems that I’m teaching and providing you or your own it doesn’t matter.
And what that means is you can’t just show somebody, you’ve got to do this. You’ve got to come in and say here’s the responsibility here all the steps so that responsibility now I want you to do it. Watch me do it I guess let me do backwards. Let me watch me do it. Now we’re gonna come in the next day. Let me watch you do it and let me watch you struggle and ask me questions. Let me assist you. Let me jump in take over a little bit back off. Let me come in the next day. Watch you do it on your own. And maybe you ask a couple questions. Let me come in another day. Let me come in just as many days as it takes to be necessary to shove you show me you’ve got it that you understand what the job is how to do it how well it should be done more importantly by when see when you’ve got that. Now I know you’ve been trained. Not just tell you once and hope you got to have common sense the next thing we got to do is add milestones. If you’ve spent any time listening to my podcast, and hear how I talked about accountability, accountability is not a dirty word. It’s also in order to do so when you assign something to somebody. You’ve got to put milestones in check in points. If you will. See, we just don’t advocate give it to a manager hope they do it. We say this is what we want done. However we want it done by when? Oh and here are the milestones by this date. You’ll have this much done by this date go this much done and so on and so forth. You’ve got to follow up with milestones even if it’s a something as simple as filling out a manager log that your expectation is they will have X percent of it done before the end of the shift and this is by the complete completed manager log by the end of the shift. I can check in on those things. And when I check in and it’s not being done I have an opportunity to retrain, re focus their effort, answer their questions ensure they can be successful.
The next thing you want to add is I want you to view accountability as an opportunity to coach See, accountability is not a dirty word. Right. I’m gonna hold you accountable that’s me hit my hand, right? We’re like this going countability that’s what managers here accountability truly is not a dirty word. It’s an opportunity to coach which think about it. If you’ve ever been an athlete, was your coach. Nice and Huggy and oh don’t worry about it. Hey, you know you can get getting in there next time. Or they came in this is what I need you to do. Work at it work at it. When you don’t do it right. They correct you’re correct you they might be hard on you pushing you to be the best you can be and then when you achieve it. They’re your biggest cheerleader. Now is that a coach is that coach means yes, there are some mean coaches out there, but it is truly them trying to push you to get the most out of you raising expectations of who you are teaching you how to be the best you can be ensuring by holding you accountable to those standards, you’re the best you can possibly be that’s what you need to be a coach in your business.
So here’s the deal. If I am accountable if I hold people accountable again, aka answerable, that equals consistency in your business. That means every manager is following the same policies held to the same standards. no favoritism, no nothing. And everybody’s telling the right rope everyone is getting the job done. See, accountability is often like the way I view discipline, because often we think of the same thing and oh by the way, if you go to Webster’s Dictionary lookup discipline, there’s an obsolete it says obsolete definition means to teach. So if we look at this, this accountability, this discipline model, if you will, we want to treat every manager, every manager, I don’t care if they’re related to you how long they’ve worked for you. I don’t care if you love them to death. Everyone’s held to the same standard and we follow discipline or accountability. Much like we would think of a cast iron coffeepot.
See a catheter cast iron coffeepot when it gets hot. It whistles right so it gives you a warning. kastari coffeepot when you touch it, it burns you it’s immediate. A cast iron coffee but no matter how many times I touch it, it burns me every single time it’s consistent. And oh by the way, no matter who touches that kind of starting coffee pot. They get burnt. It’s impersonal.
See, that’s how you have to view your accountability. You can’t have favorites. You can’t have rules for these people and different rules for those people. This requires you as the restaurant owner, or general manager for that matter to become the leader that restaurant needs your restaurant needs.
Hey, that was an awesome episode. I want to thank you for taking the time to take action on building a better more prosperous restaurant.
Before you go. I want to give you these three thoughts. One by combining leadership and taking action with systems and training being checked by accountability. You are on your way to creating prosperity for you and your restaurant, too. I have something I need from you. Please leave a review on Apple podcast Spotify or wherever you happen to listen to podcasts. By leaving us a review other restaurant pros seeking out this information are able to find it. I read the reviews and hearing how this information has benefited you does wonders for me. And three, if you find any of the discussions helpful share them, the more restaurant pros who have access to them, the better we become as an industry. For more restaurant resources or to get in contact with me. Connect with me at David Scott peters.com. Be passionate about what you’re doing. Be persistent, but more importantly become better and help everyone around you become better and your restaurant is going to kick some ass.