3 leadership lessons from chef Gordon Ramsay

There’s no doubt Gordon Ramsay can cook (even his Cesear Salad looked great) and he’s definitely charismatic. But there’s something about Ramsay as a leader that people are drawn to beyond his technical ability and charm.

We’ve all met charismatic people that can’t lead and great leaders that lack charisma. Through all the shouting, abuse and frequent use of the F-word Ramsay applies some basic leadership principles shared by most successful leaders that transcend charm and expertise.

So what is Ramsays secret recipe? Here are 3 principles that any leader or manager can learn from and apply immediately.1. Everyone know what’s expected of them.

La Lanterna is an authentic Italian restaurant in the middle of England, run by an Englishman, his best mate and a Polish assistant chef. Nothing much authentic about that. When Ramsay arrives the kitchen is filthy, the produce comes from the supermarket and the over-priced food is re-heated microwaved pap.

Ramsay is shocked by the level of hygiene. ‘No matter what you’re cooking’, Ramsay tells Alexandro, the faux Italian chef, ‘you have to stay immaculate’. Ovens should be cleaned after every service, the floor should be spotless all the time and left over food should be thrown away.

These are simple, obvious rules. And yet, no matter what the environment, if expectations are not clear, unambiguous, explicit and inflexible, standards will always slip. At best it can be described as human nature. Over time people begin to accept a slowly declining status quo as they slip into the comfort zone.

At worst, it’s the inevitable consequence of presenteeism, where the passion for the work just isn’t there. Ramsay asks the assistant chef at La Lanterna what she loves about food and cooking. Not surprisingly (she used to work at the Polish tax office) she is ambivalent and unconcerned about the beauty in food. She just couldn’t care less about the food, the customers or business she’s working for.

There’s no doubt Ramsay lacks tact and can be inappropriately abusive (which are themselves explicit expectations or norms in his profession – referred to as the ‘language of the industry’). Remove that and what remains are clear, unequivocal expectations that are reinforced frequently for the purpose of delighting the customer. Who wouldn’t want a business full of team members doing that? (minus the shouting of course)

My favourite Ramsay expectation is ‘mistakes stay in the kitchen’. The reputation of any restaurant is only as good as the quality of the food. If what’s on the plate doesn’t justify that reputation the food doesn’t leave the kitchen. It’s a great metaphor for the importance of on-going short-sharp skill development sessions (in team meetings) and coaching – a kitchen in which mistakes can be made and learned from… but, for the benefit of the customer, mistakes stay in the kitchen.

2. The way we do things around here is efficient and effective
At the Sandgate hotel in Kent the chef is spread across three restaurants. Upstairs it’s fine dining, on the terrace a New Zealand inspired beachfront BBQ and Japanese in the basement. The small team in the central kitchen cook 168 different meals and send them around the sprawling seaside hotel while customers wait hours for their meal.

When the clearly talented head chef is flipping burgers on the BBQ the fine dining menu is handled by a 21 year old and two teenage apprentices. The Sea Bass dish has 15 ingredients and the boys in the kitchen just can’t handle it.

Ramsay wants to simplify things. Close the Japanese restaurant and take the complexity out of the menu. And he wants to get rid of the ‘dumb-waiter’ and intercom system that caused so much miscommunication. Now, the waiters come down to the kitchen and talk face to face with the chef.

It’s not only the Sandgate. Episode after episode have similar stories. Ramsay knows that people can only thrive when the processes are simple and work. When they’re not it’s a recipe for low morale and endless complaint.

When we interview team members and managers ineffective and inefficient processes are a constant source of dissatisfaction. They grind people down.

Take the sales process as an example. CSO Insights, a company that benchmarks sales and marketing organisations, report that explicit sales processes are rare. In most organisations sales people are doing their own thing their own way, resulting in a wide variance. In some companies sellers are expected to adopt the formal process, but it is not monitored and improved so performance is unpredictable.

Back at the Sandgate Ramsay’s methods are paying dividends.The food is simple, the chefs are calm and everyone is working as a team. The owners ring-up 4 times last weeks Sunday lunch takings. Customers are getting fed quickly and leaving satisfied.

The quality of the food was already good and most of Ramsays minimum expectation had been in place before he got there. All he needed to do was basic process improvement to make the place run smoothly. And it worked.

3. We are all held to the same high standard.
You don’t have to spend a lot of time watching Gordon Ramsay to see how quickly and definitely consequences are mete.

That said, three things are clear:

• the consequences are always linked to the expectation (they are not arbitrary),
• it is very clear what the consequences are (you know what your getting yourself in for when you ask for his help) and
• everyone is held accountable to the same high standards.

Whether you’re the owner, the chef or the kitchen porter, there are no favourites, no privileged few and no exceptions.

These are just three of the many principles Ramsay and many other successful leaders apply every day. When expectations are clear, processes are effective & efficient and consequences are applied fairly and consistently leaders create an environment in which people thrive.

It seems like common sense, but it’s rarely common practice – and disciplined implementation of these principles (no matter how large/small the centre or team) will lead to best practice performance.

About the Author

Jason Moore consults on culture and leadership effectiveness and regularly facilitators leadership workshops. He is also an entrepreneur, author and coach. Jason co-developed the High Performance Leader diagnostic Tools (which help leaders uncover the causes of under-performance and disengagement in teams and work-groups) and blogs his thoughts on making work a better place to work.