There are lots of reasons why you need good leaders for your kitchen team. The first two reasons are obvious. A good kitchen leader will enhance the performance of the whole team. This is essential for a very important reason: the need to maintain quality in the food you are serving.

But there are two other crucial reasons as well.  These address the need to retain your existing staff with positive leadership practices. Having a good reputation as a team leader will then also help you to attract new staff.

What Does Leadership Mean?

Before you set about creating leaders, you need to know what you want in a good leader. Leadership means having the skills to motivate your kitchen team to act towards achieving a common goal. Good leadership means motivating them to do something well or better. Great leadership is motivating your team to be the very best they can be.

In Hospitality, like in any other sector of business, leadership must also be about creating profits for the business.  A team which is motivated to be the very best they can be will stay in their posts longer. They will also perform better and produce better quality food thereby enhancing the prospects for profit.

How to Lead a Kitchen Team

There are several key factors in creating your ideal kitchen team.

  • Motivation: Share your vision, so they understand the common team goals. On a more practical level, let them know how you expect them to play their part to achieve these goals. Be clear about how you want your kitchen to run and how you want staff to achieve your standards.
  • Team Chemistry: Every member must be a team player. Good leadership involves selecting the right team members.  Great leadership ensures they can work together, with the ability to lead different types of people to achieve a well performing team.  You can maintain this chemistry in simple ways.
  • Collaboration and Creativity: Encouraging collaboration and creativity in your team is a huge part of allowing each member to be the best they can be. For example, getting all the team together to train on cooking new menu items gives the opportunity to hear ideas. Even when there is a strict recipe spec, input can be made on the cooking the dish to perfection.
    Giving the team this opportunity to put forward ideas to make the service better for everyone focuses the team and camaraderie.

Communicating with Your Kitchen Team

Good communication is a vital part of leadership in your kitchen. Yes, you can motivate staff by sharing your vision and goals. But listening to your team is just as important.  The fast pace of service can leave little time for talking with and listening to the team. Time out for one to ones is scarce and appraisals often get delayed or don’t happen.

But a 15-minute job chat over a coffee can be invaluable to hear how individuals are getting on – to make them feel valued and to keep up with learning and development.  A good Team Briefing before a busy service gets everyone on board but also gives an opportunity for feedback.

For consultation, mentoring and training on leading your kitchen team, just call us on 0203 432 0975 or email: info@francesgillespie-hr.com

 

From Our Blog:

Getting the most from your staff: Performance Management

Getting the best out of your staff is a constant ongoing process, and a major part of HR management for every hospitality business…Read more here for full Performance Management blog

 

Useful Articles:
We Are Chefs – 13 Things a Chef Must Do To Become a Change Leader. Read here…

 

Bit Hospitality – What Makes a Good Kitchen Leader. Read here…

 

Chefify – How To Improve Your Leadership Skills In The Kitchen. Read here…