Stop Saying Yes, Start Leading

Here's what I see constantly in the restaurant world.

A GM who can't say no to time off requests from their team.

So they're scrambling every single week to fill a schedule.

A director of ops who won't delegate because they don't want to burden their team.

So they're drowning instead.

An owner who is so afraid of losing people that they're tolerating behavior that is slowly killing their culture.

None of these people are weak.

None of them are bad leaders.

They are people pleasers.

And the people pleaser saboteur is one of the most common and most costly patterns I see in hospitality leadership today.

That's what we're unpacking on today's show.

Let's talk about a saboteur, what it is, and why it matters.

Saboteurs are the negative thought patterns that cause all of our stress, our anxiety, our frustration, and our burnout.

We all have them.

They were formed during our childhood to protect us from something, and they did their job then, and it didn't matter if we were raised in a really healthy, happy, loving childhood or a traumatic one.

These saboteurs exist in all of us.

The problem is that they follow us into adulthood and they still inform our decisions, even when we don't need that protection anymore.

So, like I said, we all have them and the goal isn't to eliminate them because they're part of us and who we are.

This is about taking time to learn to recognize them so that they stop running the show.

The one showing up the most right now in leaders and operators in the hospitality industry is the people pleaser.

And in the restaurant industry, as you know, it's a business built entirely on hospitality and taking care of others.

So this one runs really, really deep.

Let's talk about what the people pleaser saboteur looks like.

It looks like indirectly seeking acceptance and affection by helping others, rescuing others, flattering others, or accommodating them.

Saying yes when everything in you wants to say no.