By Erin Childs, Restaurant Consultant & Coach, Independent, and Host of Uncensored and In Charge
When people hear the words “thought leadership,” they often think about visibility: articles, podcasts, speaking engagements, or social media.
I think it starts somewhere much closer to home.
Thought leadership begins with how we lead our teams. It is about knowing what we believe, being able to explain why we believe it, and staying curious enough to listen when someone challenges our thinking.
That kind of leadership creates stronger teams, better decisions, and more confident people.
Start With the Team
A strong team is not simply a collection of talented people. It is a group moving in the same direction with a shared purpose.
The best teams have:
- Clear goals
- Trust and accountability
- Open communication
- Healthy disagreement
- A willingness to support one another
Leadership creates the conditions for those things to happen.
If every decision comes from the top and everyone else simply executes, you may have employees, but you do not necessarily have a team.
The strongest teams contribute. They ask questions. They challenge assumptions. They take ownership.
Explain the Why
One of the biggest differences between managing and leading is the ability to explain why.
It is easy to say, “We’re doing this.”
It is much more powerful to say, “Here is what we are trying to accomplish, here is why I believe this makes sense, and here is where I want your perspective.”
That creates trust.
When I bring an idea to a team, I want them to know I have done the work. I have researched it, thought through the potential outcome, and developed a point of view.
But I also need enough humility to recognize that someone else may see something I do not.
That balance matters.
Great Leaders Listen
Some of the strongest leaders I have worked with share one important quality: they listen.
They listen to employees, customers, competitors, industry experts, and the market.
Listening does not mean agreeing with everything you hear. It means being curious enough to understand it.
In catering, the person closest to the work may see something leadership has missed. The kitchen may know which menu item creates unnecessary complexity. The salesperson may hear the same objection from customers every week. The delivery team may see a recurring operational problem no one is discussing.
If leaders stop listening because they believe their title means they already have the answer, the organization stops learning.
Challenge What You Think You Know
Restaurants can become very comfortable doing things the way they have always been done.
We keep menu items because they have always been there. We follow processes nobody remembers creating. We continue promoting products because leadership thinks they should work, even when customers are telling us otherwise.
That is where thoughtful leadership becomes practical.
Imagine your leadership team loves a catering menu item. It looks beautiful. Everyone believes it should sell.
But it does not.
Instead of pushing harder, bring the team together.
Ask:
- Is the product actually good?
- Does it fit the brand?
- Is it difficult to execute?
- What are customers saying?
- Should we improve it, reposition it, or remove it?
I have seen teams go through this exact exercise and realize that the beautiful product everyone loved simply was not very good.
Removing it was not failure.
Listening to the team and making a better decision was leadership.
Keep Learning
Our industry has changed dramatically, particularly since COVID forced restaurants to rethink how they reached customers outside their dining rooms.
We learned. We adapted. We built new systems.
But we cannot lead the future by only studying the past.
Thoughtful leaders continue to:
- Watch emerging trends
- Study other brands
- Understand changing customer expectations
- Identify unmet needs
- Challenge established assumptions
- Test new ideas
Experience should inform us, not trap us.
If I want to have something meaningful to say as a leader, I have a responsibility to keep learning.
Become More Valuable, Not More Visible
There is a lot of emphasis today on becoming visible as a leader.
I would rather focus on becoming valuable.
You do not need a large audience to demonstrate leadership.
The catering manager helping the kitchen solve an execution problem is leading. The restaurant manager coaching a new supervisor is leading. The salesperson who recognizes a recurring customer issue and brings the right people together to solve it is leading.
Sometimes leadership appears in something as small as the way we speak to someone.
There is a difference between:
“Do this. I need you to do this.”
and:
“Could you help me with this?”
The task may be identical, but the experience for the person receiving it is completely different.
Thoughtfulness matters.
Create More Leaders
One of the best measures of leadership is what happens to the people around you.
Do they become more confident? Do they share ideas? Do they take ownership? Can they tell you when they disagree?
A strong leadership environment gives people room to contribute, make decisions, learn from mistakes, and develop their own expertise.
My job as a leader should not be to make everyone dependent on me.
It should be to help other people become stronger.
So every once in a while, I think we should stop and ask ourselves:
- Do I listen enough?
- Does my team understand why we make decisions?
- Do people feel safe bringing me ideas?
- Am I developing other leaders?
- Am I adding value to the conversation?
The strongest leaders stay curious enough to keep learning, humble enough to listen, and confident enough to challenge conventional thinking.
That is the kind of thought leadership I believe our industry needs.
Not louder leadership.
More thoughtful leadership.
