How Are Your Resolutions Going So Far?

Our Blogs / Leadership Articles / Blog Post

Restaurant Resolutions – How to Improve Your Leadership Skills

schedule

You’ve probably already started on the New Year’s resolutions you made for your personal life – go the gym, cut the carbs, stick to the family budget, and so on. But have you thought about personal resolutions that can affect your restaurant? These would be actionable and attainable goals that improve your leadership skills. Get started with these three resolutions specific to restaurant managers.

Improve Your Communication Skills

In your role as a restaurant manager, you have to communicate with many different people, including staff, vendors, bosses, and customers. Communication is the foundation of effective leadership. To improve your communication skills for the new year, focus on these actions:

Practice active listening.
Give constructive feedback frequently.
Learn key restaurant phrases in Spanish.

Strengthen Your Team

Teams can’t exist without leaders. That’s you. You set the tone for your restaurant team. How you treat your staff affects how they treat your guests. Specific strategies for an “improve teamwork” resolution include:

Focus your training on team-building exercises.
Work with staff members to create specific team goals.
Create an incentive program that improves team morale.

Build a Better Staff

The labor market for restaurants has never been more challenging, and that trend is likely to continue. To decrease turnover, you have to focus on three areas of staffing: finding, hiring, and retaining. Tailor your staffing resolutions to target these areas:

Recruit candidates that fit with your team.
Hire based on potential rather than experience.
Retain more employees by becoming the employer of choice.

The key to being successful in the new year and beyond isn’t about doing one thing exactly right. It’s about doing several things much better than you’ve been doing them. When you spend time on key goals such as strengthening your team, improving communication skills, and decreasing turnover, you’ll find that managing day-to-day operations will get easier.