Management at Picholine

When I was working at Picholine, I learned different management styles are needed for each situation. That means that the best managers are the ones that can utelize a lot of these styles. One of the main things that made the Chef de Cuisine at Picholine a successful manager and chef was the fact the he had formal power because of his position and he also had real authority from the staff. I think this is necessary to be a successful manager because then the owners and the staff both respect your opinion, which will make managing much easier. He also had coercive power, but not in the sense reducing pay, but by calling you out in front of the whole kitchen when you screw up. While its happening it isn't fun , but I found I would never make that mistake again, so I guess it worked.
His leadership style was a mix of autocratic and democratic, which doesn't sound like they would go together, but worked well. When it came to what the final product looked and tasted like, he was completely autocratic, and you had to do it his way. How we got there he was democratic. He would tell me how to do it, but if it did not work well and I thought of another method he would encourage me to try it. Everytime the menu changed and my prep changed I found that I would try 3 or 4 different ways of doing things and then when I found a good way. This is a good way to manage because it is important that the final product is exactly how he want it, but it is important to allow people to adapt the procedure, so that they feel like they are contributing and maybe they will figure out a better way to do things.
As my externship went on I found that he was a situational leader as well. When I started he would tell me exactly what to do and how to do it. After a month I found that he was just telling me to make things and then watching how I do it, and around 3 months in I found that he stopped watching and just trusted me to do it well. This gave me a sense of accomplishment and it made me feel everything had to be perfect because he trusted me to do it well and I didn't want to prove him wrong. This probably made his job easier because if everyone is trying to make everything perfect then you don't have to watch them all the time and you can do your other jobs.