🧠 Is Your Leadership Slowing Down Your Team?

🍽️ Why the Best Leadership Happens Around the Table

The Leadership Table: - Powered by A Student of Leadership, UniPro Foodservice and our Leadership Development Program.

Where Food Industry Leaders Are Made – One Habit at a Time!

🎯 Quick – Timely – Impactful Lessons of Leadership

🍽️ The Opening Bite

In a kitchen during peak hours, there's no time for second-guessing, unclear instructions, or someone breathing over your shoulder.

Everything depends on trust, clarity, rhythm.

But here’s the problem — many leaders unknowingly break the flow of their team with well-meaning but harmful behaviors.

Micromanaging. Being vague. Holding onto tasks instead of passing the baton.

The result? A team that slows down, hesitates, or even burns out.

And the worst part? Most leaders don’t even know they’re the cause.

The good news? This is fixable. Fast.

Let’s identify the friction points — and replace them with leadership habits that move your team forward.

🧠 Leadership Insight: 5 Ways Leaders Stall Progress — and How to Fix Them

❌ Micromanagement
You think you’re helping… but you’re really handcuffing creativity.
✅ Fix: Set the goal. Step back. Trust your team to get there their way.

❌ Poor Communication
You’re in your head… but your team is left guessing.
✅ Fix: Share the plan, the why, and the expectations. Often.

❌ Lack of Trust
You hesitate to let go — they hesitate to step up.
✅ Fix: Delegate meaningful work. Show faith in their ability.

❌ Inconsistency
One day you're clear, the next you're reactive — your team never knows what to expect.
✅ Fix: Align your words and actions. Stability breeds confidence.

❌ No Delegation
You’re the hero, but also the bottleneck.
✅ Fix: Hand off ownership, not just tasks. Match strengths to responsibilities.

📣 Leadership isn’t about control.
It’s about creating the conditions for your team to thrive.

🛠 Habits That Stick: From Friction to Flow

🍋 Do More Of This
✔️ Clarify the outcome — then back off and watch how your team delivers
✔️ Explain why a decision was made, not just what was decided
✔️ Choose one task you usually cling to, and delegate it completely
✔️ Keep your tone and expectations consistent, especially under pressure
✔️ Invest weekly time in coaching and asking your team what they need

🍋 Do Less Of This
❌ Hovering over every detail
❌ Holding info until people “need to know”
❌ Saying “I’ll just do it myself”
❌ Changing priorities without explanation
❌ Taking credit and deflecting blame

🧭 Remove the bottleneck. Release the brilliance.

📚 Real Story: The Restaurant GM Who Stopped Doing It All

A general manager at a mid-sized restaurant chain was hitting a wall.
Every night, she was the first to arrive, last to leave, and doing it all. Orders. Schedules. Customer complaints. Even wiping down tables.

But results? Stalled.
Turnover climbed. Morale tanked.

After a 360 review, one message was loud and clear:
“We don’t feel trusted to do the jobs we were hired for.”

So she made a shift.

She began weekly check-ins — not to control, but to coach.
She handed the ordering system to her shift leads and let them make inventory calls.
She started asking, “What do you need from me to succeed?”

Within 90 days, team engagement spiked.
And she finally got home in time for dinner.

Lesson? Leading everything isn’t leadership.
Building trust and letting go is.

💬 Reflection Questions

• What’s one thing I’m still micromanaging that I could release this week?

• How often do I explain the “why” behind my decisions?

• Do my team members feel comfortable making decisions without me?

• Where might inconsistency in my leadership be causing confusion?

🚀 Action Challenge of the Week

🎯 Identify Your Bottleneck
📝 Ask your team: “What’s one area where I could step back more so you can step up?”
🤝 Delegate one important task — with full ownership
🔄 Check in once midweek: “How’s it going? What support do you need?”
📢 At week’s end, reflect: Did removing myself actually improve the result?

🔁 Leadership Habit of the Week
🎯 Practice the “Step-Back and Support” Habit
Each day this week, identify one situation where you’d normally jump in…
And instead ask:

💬 “What’s your approach here?”
🤔 “What support would help you most?”
📣 “Let me know how it goes — I trust your judgment.”

Why it works:
Letting go tells your team: “I believe in you.”
And belief is the ultimate fuel for ownership.

✅ Less control. More capacity.

🔎 One Last Bite of Curiosity

What if the biggest growth barrier on your team…
Isn’t their skill, effort, or motivation?

What if it’s you?

Not because you’re not capable — but because you haven’t stepped aside long enough to let them rise?

Start asking:
🔍 Am I holding on because I’m needed… or because I need control?
🔁 Do I lead through coaching — or through correcting?
📈 What could happen if I focused less on managing and more on multiplying?

Because great leaders don’t move pieces.
They build players.

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