Good Leadership 2: Gordon Ramsey

This is the second in my series of posts about leadership skills in people I admire.

Gordon Ramsey
I love to watch Gordon Ramsey on TV. Here are leadership skills he displays:

High standards
I'm not sure that the language he uses to insist on the high standards from the staff in his restaurants but it's not hard to see how important he believes having high standards in all aspects of his businesses.

Listens to complaints
He has written in his books about the way that he loves getting complaint letters about his restaurants. These inform any part of his action plan.

Keep it simple and effective
In his Kitchen Nightmares programmes I've often seen him criticise a menu for the amount of choice it contains. How can the kitchen staff prepare so many dishes to the high standards needed? How can the house staff build up product knowledge about so many dishes? Put simply, they can't. Often the first change he makes is to redesign the menu - keep it short and simple and high quality and the customers will keep coming back.

Recognising strengths
Ramsey can quickly spot the strengths and unique selling points of people and places. It's so important that leaders can spot these and use them to make their business/school strong and different.

Everyone know the expectations
Regular meetings and liaisons with all staff allow expectations to be shared and maintained.

Image: http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/four-essential-business-lessons-from-chef-gordon-ramsey/