Learning to Lead

By: Kate Edwards

Kate Edwards of Kate Edwards & Company on Learning to Lead

We often hear the phrase that leaders are born, not made. But that’s not always true in the eyes of hospitality consultant Kate Edwards. At her eponymous company, Edwards offers leadership coaching to help restaurant professionals rise to the challenges of guiding a team to provide excellence in customer satisfaction. Learn why she believes that leadership can be mastered by you and your team.

Anyone Can Learn to Lead

Leadership isn’t necessarily an inherent quality one enters the world with. Rather, says Edwards, “Leadership is a skill. Management is a skill. That’s important to realize because anybody can gain a skill.” While certain people may possess innate qualities that are helpful in a leadership role, they aren’t the sole basis for their success on a managerial level. “You see people and they’re natural, they’re charismatic and you think that they’ve just figured it out. Yes, those things have helped them, but they are still actively working at the skill of leadership.”

Start with Strengths

While things like organization, time management, and patience are imperative to effective leadership, Edwards concentrates on an individual’s strengths. “I focus on the strength you have, the strength that is working for you, and the strength you might not need anymore. You may have skills that don’t apply [at a certain level] so we need to move them off the plate to make room for other things.”

Out with the Old

In her work, Edwards has encountered struggles within what she calls the in-between generation of hospitality professionals. “They came up with some real hard-ass chefs and they evolved out of that internally, but they don’t have a model for a better way,” she says. As a result, this leaders-in-the-making can become passive. “They have high ideals, but they don’t give feedback and they don’t know how to express themselves. They don’t want to be the yeller, the screamer.” Poise is key in this case. “Everything I do is about having people understand how to do their jobs more confidently and to feel more authentic.”

The Power of Persuasion Matters

“One of the things that I work on with people is being able to be persuasive when you’re leading a group of people,” says Edwards. “You need to be able to persuade your team to move with you.” This isn’t accomplished through some outdated model of brute force. “Being humble and open, transparency — those are huge things to be as a leader. We’re taught that you have to be the tough guy when you’re a leader when, in fact, it’s actually the opposite.” 

The Devil Is in the Details

A leader cannot thrive if he or she is drowning in the day-to-day details of operations. Big picture thinking is a must for effective leadership — and micromanagement is its polar opposite. “When I find people who are micromanaging, it’s because they’re fearful and they don’t know how to empower others. They don’t know how to delegate.” This leads to a cycle of helplessness within the team, Edwards notes. “When I coach people to empower their team, to show their team how to do a task, it really changes the whole dynamic. It’s almost as if you can flip it like a switch!”

Dare to Be Direct

COVID’s impact on the hospitality industry has been particularly brutal and leadership across the board has had to navigate unchartered territory. Edwards says, “So many owners and operators have had to lay off their entire team or completely change their concept. Nobody prepares you for that. It’s untenable.” Honesty, however, is key. She counts Arne Sorenson, the former CEO of Marriott, as a model leader during this crisis. “He was very clear on what was happening — he told the cold, hard truth. And yet he managed to be very humble, compassionate, and empathetic.”

Learn how Kate Edwards & Company can help today’s restaurant staffers become tomorrow’s results-oriented leaders.