Leadership: Good vs. Bad

I have found it interesting to read and discuss the different types of Leaders that are in our industry. Becoming a leader is a very big role and personally I don't feel like people take it seriously. Alot of people want the position because of the money and power. I have had many experiences with bad supervisors and chefs, as I'm sure we all have. While I was on extern I experienced both good and bad leading skills. Both the executive chef and new supervisor started within a couple weeks of each other.The Chef de Cuisine (Executive chef of the kitchen) came in and took full leadership right away, it became his kitchen. The chef had a combination of styles that all played well off each other. He was Democratic/participative, situational, and transactional. He was focused and made sure to encourage the team to succeed and stay focused with the task at hand. He was one of the most hands on chefs I've ever worked with and my respect for him grew because of that. Even though the main focus is our customers, chef devoted alot of his time into building a family/team. He made us all feel apart of it and focused on our individual goals, needs, and interest. Alot of chefs in our industry don't care about their employees because they are too focused on making money. J. Willard Marriott said it best "Take care of your people, the people will take care of the customers, and the customers will come back." I strongly feel every leader should take this approach with their employees.
Chef was also focused on getting us involved and allowing us to have input, even though he made the final decision. As an extern this made me feel good that my opinion mattered to someone I highly respect and look upto. Respect is important if you don't have that for your supervisor, your not going to care what they think of you.
My bad experience involved the other supervisor (who is below the chef). She transferred from a banquet management position and walked right into a supervisor position. In some kitchens there is nothing wrong with that, but in some kitchens it can be a problem. She walked into a position not knowing anything and she had never worked a station in the resturant. Right away this caused problems because my co-workers didn't respect her. She had power and used it, but wasnt confident in her decision making. It became very hard to listen to someone tell you how to do something that they themselves had never done. This caused confusion in the kitchen and no one respected her. Overall chef lead the team to rise above this hurdle, but it took months. I think this problem could have been avoided with proper training from the beginning.

It's hard, we are all going to go through experiences of working with good and bad supervisors, but what are you as an individual going to get out of it. Personally it challenges me and makes me want to be a better leader and change the way the industry looks at Leadership roles.